






Class 

Book ■K 4 i q C 

CopightN? 

1 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 

- J 


i 





I 




* 

.% ■ r 


:a 




iM 




















CLEM 







% 

* • 

\V.J 

nSVl:i!. i - 1- . 

^ • 

k 


CLEM 

BY EDNA KENTON 

• •% 

AUTHOR OF “WHAT MANNER OF MAN” 





THE CENTURY CO. 
N EW YORK . . . 1907 



UCRARY of congress] 
Two Cooler Hb6«Jvod ! 

AUG 18 1907 

Copyright Entry 
cuss XXCm No. 
COPY b. 


X 


Copyright, 1907, by 
The Century Co. 

Published, A ugusi, jqoj 



THE DE VINNE PRE88 


MY MOTHER 





l': 


r 



CLEM 



ivV-tfV' 


V" 


A' 

ft iV^\ ' 



It' 


1 


^ , ., 

« 


t 


{ 




I 


i 


I • 


.k 


» : , 

t 

t 

> % 



I ^ ' V 

i ‘ 


t 


\ 





s 


I 



I 


I 


r 

‘ ^ 


4 

n. 


» 


I 


» 


* 

I 


t 


I 







4 


i 

t 


t 


-s^ 




t 


CLEM 


I 

T he little group sitting on a small, re- 
tired veranda bent forward interest- 
edly as the sudden clatter of heavy, plated 
harness and the click of horses’ hoofs broke 
out on the driveway just below. As the 
hotel groom released the horses’ heads at 
an imperious order from the trap’s single 
occupant, a blonde and beautiful young 
woman, and the bright red equipage leaped 
forward with renewed din, the specially 
interested onlookers sank back into their 
chairs with amicable smiles as signs of 
recognized truce before the interrupted 
discussion of this same young woman 
broke out again. 

“Just for instance!” remarked Farda 
Grantham disdainfully, with a gesture to- 
ward the crowded beach driveway down 


CLEM 


which the girl was guiding, with almost 
ostentatious skill, her beautiful horses. 

Mrs. Gresham, leaning back in her low 
chair, laughed delightedly. “Well, what- 
ever she is or is n’t, the girl can drive and 
ride,” she asserted warmly. “Eaton, did 
you see her tame that ramping thing the 
other morning?” 

Her husband nodded assent, and Mrs. 
Gresham swept on: “She was riding that 
morning, and she had a black devil of a 
horse — his eyes and his ears and his nose 
were like flames. It was in view of the 
entire hotel frontage, right out yonder, and 
it was terrifying and delightful and unut- 
terably loud, of course. But it was a splen- 
did thing to see. Without doubt she ’s 
Wild West, as they all say — she learned 
some of those display tricks of hers no- 
where but from the trickiest of cowboys 
— but truly I felt like cheering her as 
she fought and won that battle ; she might 
have been killed easily. The picture of 
her! — her dead black habit and her dead 
black horse, and that gold-yellow hair of 


CLEM 


hers beneath that rigidly correct Derby, 
and her black gauntleted whip-hand — ’’ 

‘Xook !’^ interrupted Miss Grantham. 
She pointed down the beach drive, and 
their eyes followed her accusing finger. 
Before the club-house, a quarter of a mile 
below, the red trap halted, and on its high 
seat its white-clad, golden-haired occupant 
sat, serenely waiting. As a lithe, athletic 
young fellow ran down the steps of the 
club-house and swung up into the vacant 
seat beside the girl, the watching group sat 
back again, this time without smiles on the 
women’s part. Eaton Gresham exchanged 
grins with his smoking companion oppo- 
site, and then glanced for sympathy at the 
third man of the group. But Drake Lori- 
mer neither looked back nor smiled. 
Whereupon Gresham gave him a malicious 
dig in the side. 

‘‘Wake up, Drake, old man!” he urged. 
“That was Reggie!” 

“Eaton, don’t be a fool!” implored his 
wife. “Drake is worried, as he has a right 
to be, of course.” 


CLEM 


‘‘Oh, hardly worried,” Lorimer re- 
sponded pleasantly, smiling slightly now at 
Gresham. 

“But if it were just a bit more open, eh ?” 
suggested the affable Mrs. Gresham. 
“He 's with her all the time, Drake, and of 
late it ’s been after this fashion — ever since 
you and Jack Lowe came down.” 

Lorimer tossed a charred cigarette over 
the railing. “We ’ll all be rusticating at 
The Pines in another fortnight,” he re- 
marked. “There ’ll be nothing to all this, 
once out of sight and sound.” 

“Nothing to it!” cried Farda Grantham. 
“It ’s high time you were looking into it 
then, for your own enlightenment as well 
as Reggie’s good. As Dell says, he ’s with 
her all the time; it ’s appalling. Not that 
he ’s unlike a great lot of the men here, in 
that respect; Jack, for instance, when Reg- 
gie gives him a chance; but he ’s such a 
nice boy, and such a boy — only twenty! 
And she ’s— how old should you say, Dell? 
— twenty-six— seven— eight ?” 


CLEM 

‘‘I don’t incriminate myself that way,” 
retorted Dell Gresham. “I ’ve a painfully 
constructed reputation for good nature. 
But all of twenty-six, Farda. She ’s ma- 
ture.” 

“She ’s worse than mature,” said Farda 
coldly. “She ’s experienced — ” 

Drake Lorimer, listening intently to all 
the quick give and take of speech, lost the 
rest of the girl’s words through a whis- 
pered question of Mrs. Gresham’s. 

“Does Aunt Frances seem to you to be 
aware of the state of things at all?” she 
asked eagerly. “No, I have n’t dared say 
anything definite to her, since the first time 
I mentioned it. For she went at Reggie 
with that grande dame air of hers, you 
know ; and Reggie flared up inwardly, 
though he was as dear to her as he always 
is, and she missed sight of his hidden re- 
sentment. But take my word for it, Drake, 
the little boy is badly caught. So badly 
that I verily believe it all depends on the 
girl, and I ’ve wondered if her sense of 

1:73 


CLEM 


humor is subtle enough to save the day. 
She ’s half a century older than Reggie, 
you know.” 

She nodded her head sapiently, and 
edged her chair nearer Lorimer’s. She was 
a rather young woman, modern to a de- 
gree. Naturally fair of skin, she wore a 
perpetual coat of tan to which she assidu- 
ously added at all seasons of the year in 
one place or another. Her eyes were her 
greatest attraction ; they were placed pecu- 
liarly far apart. Of perfect roundness, 
they seemed like holes burnt in her impu- 
dent little face, all the more like holes 
because they were mostly deep black pupil, 
set about with long, dark lashes, thick, yet 
with each and every lash distinct. The ef- 
fect of Dell Gresham’s lashes was that 
which one gets in a photograph cheap and 
too much retouched — they were so strongly 
accentuated in a face otherwise insignifi- 
cant. For her nose was badly modeled, 
and her mouth was crooked, and her teeth 
none of the straightest. But, given those 
eyes and lashes, unbeautiful as they were. 


CLEM 

her face was raised instantly from medioc- 
rity to a plane intensely magnetic. 

Drake Lorimer looked at her thought- 
fully, with his deep-set eyes holding 
scarcely a gleam in their lazy depths. 

‘'It was your letter, and that alone, which 
brought me down here, Dell,^^ he said at 
last, almost impatiently. “I came because 
you forejudged me a coward if I did 
not come. But I ^m not believing it ’s a 
matter one hundredth as serious as all 
you women are trying to make out. Boys 
have a dozen desperate cases — ” 

“Reggie Wines has never had one 
yet,’’ Mrs. Gresham interrupted shrewdly. 
“That ’s what makes so much of it depend 
on the girl. A first love affair is always 
serious, especially a boy’s affair. A 
girl usually is safely enough in love with 
Love to make the man a minor matter, but 
a boy is in love with Woman, and it de- 
pends on the woman — oh, infinitely!” 
ended Dell, characteristically vague, and 
yet appallingly definite. 

“In any event, Dell,” said Lorimer, “the 

n93 


CLEM 


boy is not eligible. He is too much her 
junior; he has not great wealth — ” 

Mrs. Gresham sniffed at the feeble rea- 
soning. ‘^At least once in her life every 
woman loves a boyV' she admitted. ‘‘At 
least once ! Then there ’s enough to Reggie 
in the way of family to counterbalance any 
lack of stupendous wealth on his side. 
She ’s got enough of that for ten genera- 
tions, but when it comes to family — can 
she go back one?” 

“What family has she? Father — 
mother?” 

“No mother, thank heaven — you can 
imagine what she would be like. A father, 
not unpresentable until he begins to talk, 
and not then unless one is mercilessly con- 
ventional. But he keeps discreetly in the 
background; plays poker most of the time. 
The men say that he is at his best at cards, 
that he is almost a gentleman then, espe- 
cially when he is losing, and that he is at 
least a full-blooded man. He worships this 
girl, it ’s easy to see. At the charity fete 
they gave down here last week, he bought 


CLEM 


her way in with a thousand-dollar check — 
oh, it was this way: I caught a frightful 
rose cold, and was simply out of it, and he 
came over to say he ’d heard ‘the lady who 
was to read palms had tuckered out,^ and 
that his daughter, being a stranger, had n’t 
been noticed with a booth or a stall, but 
that she could read hands as well as any 
lady there, and offeree her services and the 
check. There was a significant sequence 
to his phrases which impressed the treas- 
urer, and they took both. She did rriake 
something of a sensation, for her make-up 
was gorgeous. She wore a bushel of uncut 
turquoises and cloth-of-gold and that sort 
of thing. But with all that splendor, and 
the weight of jewels that a less vigorous 
young animal would have staggered under, 
she ’s too evidently only ‘Pick-me-up !’ ” 

‘You have a vivid tongue, Dell,” Lori- 
mer protested faintly. “Has she no * 
friends here of any sort ?” 

“Since the fete, yes; most of the men, 
but no women, Drake. And it ’s been since 
then that Reggie Wines ‘has taken to dog- 


CLEM 


ging her steps. Oh, yes, I Ve talked to her 
some — we Ve met on the verandas — and 
she V a good-natured, happy-go-lucky 
thing. But oh, Drake 

“And Mrs. Wines is n’t aware of the — 
what you term ‘seriousness’ of the affair?” 

“Not from me !” said her niece promptly. 
“I gave her fair warning at first, and she 
took high-class action, and I daresay she 
thinks the incident closed.” 

Lorimer moved impatiently. “Really,” 
he said, “I don’t see what there is to do. 
Anything, that is, which won’t tend to 
make serious what may be merely fleeting.” 

He paused; then added slowly: “I met 
the girl myself, last week. You remember 
I ran down for the fete casually — she read 
my hand, gave me a remarkably good read- 
ing; showed herself, in a blunt, unsubtle 
fashion, a good deal of a physiognomist. 
She managed to get a lot of intangible 
atmosphere into that curtained recess. I 
remember now, she knew me immediately 
—there ’s something about the girl that is 
intensely magnetic— attractive — ” 


CLEM 


He broke off, his attention distracted by 
an irritated wave of his neighbor’s hand, 
not Gresham’s, but that of Gresham’s ms-d- 
vis, the third man of the group. Its 
owner’s voice followed swiftly, and ar- 
rested the attention of every one. John 
Lowe was a noticeably ugly man of some 
thirty-two or -three years, sandy-haired and 
dully florid. His nose was long, and sloped 
at a peculiar angle from his sloping fore- 
head. His jaw was squarely built and 
massive, and his mouth was large. His 
lips met each other at right angles rather, 
than with gentle curves. His ugliness was 
so compelling a thing as to make of him a 
striking man. He was a successful painter, 
and bore the appearance of a thrifty busi- 
ness man. Even his hand was not of the 
artist’s type, though the sight of those thick 
fingers holding masterfully the brush could 
never be forgotten. 

‘‘You plunge into your subject like a 
blind diver, my dear Farda,” he said 
coolly. “Denys raves over her ; curses fate 
that she was n’t born a child of the Quar- 


CLEM 


tier. That portrait he did of her— the one 
he made his big hit on — is an amazing 
thing. You must have seen it yourself, if 
you took in the Salon last year. It had a 
wall to itself, great big canvas, blonde girl 
with blue jewels of eyes, blue background 
—all of it was daringly, glaucously 
blue-” 

‘‘Oh, I saw it, of course,” said Miss 
Grantham impatiently. “And I read in it 
just what you are eliminating — inherent 
coarseness, mental, physical, and probably 
moral. It was loud, overbearing, shriek- 
ingly insistent. The very dress — the way 
she wore it — the handling of that left 
shoulder — do you remember it? Yes, 
Denys is a psychologist, but we differ vi- 
tally in interpreting him.” 

Lowe sank more deeply into his comfort- 
able chair, and became leisurely reminis- 
cent. 

“I met her almost two years ago, while 
that portrait was being done. Met her for 
the first time one morning in Denys’ place. 
She was giving him a sitting, and I stum- 


CLEM 


bled in, and the two of them together let 
me in on it. She was a stunning sight that 
day— I tell you, Farda, you Ve read him 
wrong; because Denys and I talked her 
over later, deliberately, with the appalling 
frankness which painters and physicians 
dare to use — it ’s not inherent coarseness 
he 's put there— I should n’t grant that 
at all.” 

“I saw her one day, down yonder on the 
bathing beach,” Farda interrupted with’ 
provocative calm. ‘‘Just two or three 
weeks ago. She happened to wear black 
and red this time, instead of blue. You 
mentioned daringly blue. This was auda- 
cious rouge-et-noir. I got down there— 
you were there, too, and staring generously 
— just as she was coming up from the surf. 
All about her there were other bathing- 
costumes quite as conspicuous in cut and 
color. But if she had shrieked she 
could n’t have announced her presence more 
loudly than she did by the very force of 
her personality. It literally shouts; she 
does n’t have to.” 


CLEM 

Lowe smiled broadly as he listened to the 
girl’s cold recital. 

‘‘Precisely !” he retorted, with a crisp- 
ness in his voice that went well with the 
snap in his gray-green eyes. “Because she 
was a thing apart from every other woman 
there. Denys was right, and that day I 
saw he was right. She looked the primitive 
W Oman. She might have been the primeval 
Woman walking untrodden sands, pressing 
the springing earth when the world was 
young. She was so nobly unashamed and 
so purely human — ah yes, she was! The 
very atoms of her might have been scooped 
up from virgin earth, from sea-born clay 
just washed to shore; and a Rodin hand 
might have modeled her I” 

Mrs. Gresham beat softly with her foot 
upon the floor. She put her two elbows on 
her knees and dropped her chin into her 
hands, and her eyes sparkled wickedly 
above them. Farda turned coldly to her. 

“Is n’t it strange, Dell,” she observed 
disdainfully, “how men stand up for a de- 
classe woman if she ’s pretty? Every one 


CLEM 


said, all over Paris, whether they knew the 
girl or not, and it was mostly not, of 
course, that the Denys portrait was a piti- 
less thing!” 

“Virginia saw it, too,” reminded Lowe. 
“Was it pitiless, Vee?” 

A slender girl of twenty, sitting a little 
apart from the others, and evidently ab- 
sorbed in a book, looked quickly up at the 
direct question, and glanced about the 
group. Then she looked appealingly at her 
cousin. 

“I did n’t hear, Drake,” she said to him. 

“Lowe wants your opinion of that blue 
lady of Denys’ which you liked so much a 
year or so ago, when you saw it,” Lorimer 
answered absently. Stray phrases from 
Lowe’s late rhapsody were beating about in 
his brain. 

“Wake up, Vee,” Miss Grantham be- 
sought her plaintively. “That portrait of 
Clem M err it—” 

“I know,” the girl said. Her eyes, set 
wide apart and intended by nature for 
merely ruminative contemplation, were 


CLEM 

drawn together in the pained earnestness of 
her thought. 

don’t like to think of that portrait, or 
that girl,” she said at last with startling 
candor. “They are both of them too — 
happy. As if no sorrow or pain could ever 
come near her. It is enough to make any 
one— jealous of her!” 

She broke off abruptly, with a slow flush 
creeping over her face, and then she turned 
her chair about, and seemed to bury herself 
in her book. A slight pause followed which 
was too heavily weighted with common 
understanding to be endured for long. 

“I still insist — ” began Miss Grantham 
blandly. Lowe stopped her. 

“You ’ll insist one way or another with 
Death, my dear girl ; and I should n’t bet 
on Death as a sure thing at all.” 

Mrs. Gresham got up suddenly. “I can 
appreciate Jack’s bleatings about primitive 
womanhood and all that,” she remarked 
crisply; “and for myself, I don’t mind the 
girl, the little I ’ve seen of her ; she ’s a type 
not without interest. But when you take 


CLEM 


her out of primitive environment, and put 
her — into Aunt Frances’ remote circle, for 
instance— hush, here ’s Aunt Frances now. 
You ’re fairly warned, Drake, and I wash 
my hands right here of any sort of re- 
sponsibility in Reggie’s love affairs. The 
solution or the catastrophe is entirely up to 
you. I ’m off. Come, Eaton.” 

With the typically unreasoning obedience 
of the American husband, Gresham rose 
lazily to his feet, and followed in his wife’s 
rippling wake. Lowe glanced across at 
Farda and raised his eyebrows intelligently, 
and at an answering nod from her they 
both rose and went away, taking Virginia 
with them. Mrs. Gresham cast one glance 
back over her very Frenchy shoulder, and, 
seeing Lorimer still alone, came back to 
him, her eyes alight with mischief. 

“Do help Aunt Frances out!” she begged 
softly. “Her dearest, most secret wish is 
so transparent ! All ’s lovely, or would be, 
if both Virginia and Reggie were n’t in 
love with the wrong people. However, 
you ’ve meddled successfully in Vee’s little 


CLEM 

affair; it ’s time for you to take up Reg- 
gie’s.” 

“How does Virginia seem to you, Dell?” 
Lorimer asked quickly. “She had n’t much 
to say to me one way or another — of 
course, I can’t blame her.” 

“Mopey and languid, and given to long 
and solitary walks, only she has to walk so 
far here to get to the solitary places that 
she ’s been sort of forced into mixing with 
people, which seems very hard luck to her, 
but is the best possible thing, of course,” 
said Dell briskly. “She ’s taken it rather 
hard, but she has sense enough to know, 
from all the evidence you and I presented, 
that that beast of a Marmaduke Saals- 
field was as great a bounder as she could 
ever know. It was outrageous that she 
ever met him, but in these days one can’t 
keep girls in pink cotton-batting — even 
nunnish creatures like Vee. And then, 
when she was allowed to go up to those 
Mortimers for the holidays, what could 
you or Aunt Frances expect !” 


CLEM 


“They are undoubtedly undesirable peo- 
ple,” Lorimer began, but Dell interrupted. 

“Oh, that depends on the point of view, 
Drake. Of their sort they Te a very good 
sort. Not squeamish at all, nothing belles- 
lettres about them or their crowd, but they 
know how to put up a jolly good time 
for themselves and their friends, of whom 
I ’m one. We were n’t here then, or 
we ’d probably have been in the party, 
in which case I think I would have sent 
Vee home. It was too raw an initiation 
into the free-spoken life. How is it that 
extremes do so attract! One would have 
thought that Vee would have been the last 
girl there to catch his eye, but she was the 
first as I had the tale from Fannie Morti- 
mer, and Vee— of course he ’s a black, 
Satanic, temple-frosted, interesting-looking 
man of the world, and to Vee he seemed 
the epitome of all wisdom. Well, he knows 
enough I” 

Lorimer smiled grimly. “And now, at 
least, Vee knows a small part of the man- 


CLEM 


ner of his wisdom. It was like pulling a 
flower to pieces, to tell her.” 

‘^Oh, that was n’t so hard,” said Dell 
wisely, ‘‘as telling her that he ’d put up no 
fight. At first she ’d have defied us all, if 
he ’d met her half-way.” 

“The man could n’t,” Lorimer protested, 
whereat Mrs. Gresham snapped her fingers 
contemptuously. 

“Of course he could n’t, but did that keep 
Vee’s pride from being cut into decimated 
ribbons! That ’s what hurts the child so 
bitterly; though it ’s killed her fascination 
as nothing else could, not even your shock- 
ing disclosures. Here’s Aunt Frances. To 
the rescue, Drake I” 

“Don’t rush away,” said Lorimer calmly. 

“Oh, thanks, but Eaton is glowering,” 
returned Mrs. Gresham, with the most 
brazen of glances at Gresham’s placid face. 
“Thanks, Aunt Frances, I can’t. But you 
keep Drake company. This corner is the 
coolest spot about here to-day.” 

She pushed forward a chair for Mrs. 
Wines, quite close to Lorimer’s. 


CLEM 


‘‘Cheer him up, Aunt Frances,” she said. 
“His latest hero ought to marry one girl, 
and naughtily prefers another. And this 
hero is no puppet.” 

She flashed one wickedly amused glance 
at Lorimer and slipped away. 


II 


A s Dell disappeared, Mrs. Wines turned 
« with cordial eagerness to Lorimer. 

‘‘It is such a pleasure to see you again so 
soon,” she said. “Last week your trip was 
so flying, and the confusion of that charity 
fete so great, that it was anything but sat- 
isfactory.” She stopped to look search- 
ingly at him. “Something is vexing you,” 
she declared. “Something which will not 
work out, will not come right. I thought 
the book was altogether and finally done.” 

She bent toward him, a charming woman 
of barely twoscore years, with a beauty 
which was entirely individual. Her color- 
ing was the peculiar pale-brown color- 
scheme which tinges the eyes, the hair, and 
even the skin with a faint, lovely olive. Her 
face was purely and delicately modeled, and 
her still slender figure held the lines of her 
early youth. 


CLEM 


Lorimer smiled. “Merely an inconse- 
quent point,” he assured her. “I Ve been 
rushing the novel through, trying to get 
the manuscript in before the first of the 
month, and haste and hot weather have 
played havoc with my nerves and temper.” 

“Oh, pray don’t speak of nerves and 
havoc!” Mrs. Wines exclaimed wearily. 
“All my summer plans have gone magnifi- 
cently awry. We should have been settled 
at The Pines now, with the first fortnight 
almost ended. But the workmen have dal- 
lied, and will not be out for another two 
weeks. You will come to us at the given 
word ?” 

“At the drop of the hat!” Lorimer as- 
sured her. “As it is, though, you all but 
have the regular group here — Dell, Eaton, 
Farda, Lowe, Virginia—” 

“But here!” sighed Mrs. Wines. This 
stay at a noisy summer resort had not 
formed any part of her summer plans, for 
the last week in June always found her in 
her rambling, beautiful summer home, with 
a party about her made up of friends so 


CLEM 


near and congenial that it might well be 
called a family affair, and which for the 
first fortnight of every summer’s stay, was 
practically the same, year after year. A part 
of its personnel might vary slightly from 
summer to summer, but its spirit remained 
constant. This summer, however, during 
the enforced wait, more to please her im- 
perious young son than from her own 
choice, she had been staying at this place 
of his choosing, this somewhat loud sum- 
mer resort, not so thronged, so early in the 
season, as to make it unbearable, but even 
now a place where the hotel contingent ar- 
rogantly outshone the cottage cliques in 
number and display. 

“Yet I am surprised to find you lounging 
here,” she added, after a moment’s pause. 
“I thought I heard you and Reggie plan- 
ning a stupendous tramp for to-day, and 
when neither of you appeared at luncheon 
I thought you were taking it.” 

“I lunched at the club,” Lorimer ex- 
plained. “I was feeling in fine feather for 
a prolonged stroll, and it met with Reggie’s 


CLEM 


great favor when I suggested it; but later 
the old chap ducked, and I could n’t hit his 
trail.” 

'That is not right,” said Reggie’s 
mother disapprovingly. "His time has 
been greatly taken up ever since he came 
down here, but when you are willing to 
give him as much of your time as you do, 
he should at least keep his engagements, 
with you — ” 

Lorimer raised a beseeching hand. 
"Never dare breathe such a thing to Reg- 
gie! Never! I am absurdly fond of the 
boy, and in spite of the fifteen years be- 
tween us, he has always condescended to 
look upon me as one of his immediate gen- 
eration. Don’t ever let such a gross insinua- 
tion as respect for the age he so blithely 
ignores come between him and me !” 

Mrs. Wines looked at him with tender 
gratitude. 

"How wisely his father planned for 
him!” she breathed. "When he gave you 
such charge over him — to be his friend. I 
can never thank you, Drake, for what you 


CLEM 


have done for him, been to him; for your 
help to me with him; for your loyalty to 
his father’s trust in you!” 

She paused a moment, looking with sof- 
tened eyes across the flowering lawns to the 
sea beyond. Then she turned back to him. 

“It gives me ,such comfort always to 
remember his last charge to you, a charge 
which has never yet weighed heavily on 
you, for there has never been a moment 
when imminent anxiety about my boy has 
assailed me; but it is a comfort always to 
remember that you have promised us both, 
his father and me, if the time of trial or 
need comes, to stand by Reggie.” 

“The promise was a feeble return for all 
Morley Wines did for me — meant to me,”* 
Lorimer reminded her gently. “I never 
gain a laurel leaf, you know, however 
small, that I don’t feel like laying it on his 
tomb. He took me out of his lecture- 
courses, a half-blind cub, and he opened my 
eyes and fed me on his knowledge and his 
supreme culture— and, after all, the prom- 
ise has been a perfunctory one. Reggie 


CLEM 

is n’t the sort of chap to cause one much 
anxiety about his welfare.” 

“Indeed no,” assented his mother, with 
tranquil pride. “And so much of that is 
due to you — ah, I know it, if you will not 
let me say it. I remember so often, during 
those last weeks, his father told me that a 
time was coming, sooner or later in the 
boy’s life, when I could not count, objec- 
tively, at least; when it would take a man 
to help him, to lift him up, and set him on 
his feet again; and he chose you for that 
time, when it should come. And I am 
wondering, really, if I shall ever need you 
so; if Reggie will ever, for a time even, 
thrust me to one side, and make me of no 
account in his life. It is wisdom to think 
he will, and to be prepared, but deep in my 
heart I am at peace.” 

“When the time comes, command me,” 
Lorimer said briefly. 

Mrs. Wines laughed lightly. “One must 
believe, however, in the eternal balance of 
things. And I must expect, therefore, in 
the very scheme of nature, that he will 


CLEM 


some time, sooner or later, depart from the 
pleasant paths where we have walked to- 
gether all his happy life long — ’’ 

In the tense silence which fell Lorimer 
glanced up, to look upon a poignant bit of 
human melodrama. Mrs. Wines was lean- 
ing forward, her wide eyes fastened on the 
path just below them, a path screened for 
the most part by position and shrubbery, 
whereon two people stood; one of them 
young Reginald Wines, and beside him, 
almost his peer in height, the girl of the 
brilliant red trap and the black horses ; the 
girl of Claude Denys’ portraying — Clem 
Merrit. She was tall, strikingly beautiful, 
molded along superb lines. She was of the 
pure blonde type. Her hair was like spun 
gold, without a tinge of cendre in it; it was 
the liquid honey of the harvest moon. Her 
eyes were as blue as the sea they looked out 
upon. Her eyebrows were exquisitely pen- 
ciled, so finely drawn, with such delicate 
darkness and precision of outline, that one 
was fain to wonder if such perfection could 
be nature unassisted. Her coloring was so 


CLEM 


splendid that the same provocative thought 
again intruded itself. .Her figure was per- 
fect, and her clinging dress of lace and 
linen caressed every lovely line. And in 
her eyes as she looked upon the boy, and 
most of all, in his eyes as he looked on 
her — There was little that was tangible 
in the scene, but the atmosphere was suffo- 
cating, and in that lay all the reason why 
this mother should sink back in her chair 
as she did, faint and sick, and white to the 
lips. Up to this moment she had earnestly 
believed that she knew every thought of 
her open-hearted boy. She had even 
spoken to him of this girl, frankly, dis- 
dainfully — before she knew, before she 
knew ! But this little scene, one upon which 
a staring universe might have gazed and 
been none the wiser, told her absolutely 
that somehow her boy was wholly hers no 
more, that he was living now a phase of 
life from whose sharing she was shut out. 

And the thought was a shock. As a 
youngster Reggie had loathed dancing- 
school and its short-skirted little girls. In 


CLEM 

his preparatory school-days he had fol- 
lowed a god instead of any goddess — that 
great god whose symbol is a pigskin ball. 
So far he had had no time for the worship 
of girls; and now, without warning, and 
without choice — though when did a mother 
ever choose ! — this thing was thrust nakedly 
upon her ! 

Now came Drake Lorimer’s bad quarter 
of an hour, to whose full enjoyment Dell 
Gresham had maliciously left him; during 
which he spoke with the full courage of his 
lack of conviction. In these last two days 
stray bits of gossip had come his way with 
that fiendish directness which a dominant 
idea impels. The girl herself had struck 
his eye at every turn. He had seen Reggie 
numbered in her train without undue promi- 
nence, yet wearing a confident calm which 
was, to his moral guardian, rather discon- 
certing than reassuring, and which argued, 
in so young a lover, no pangs of uncer- 
tainty. Lorimer had learned, too, that 
there were many hours in the day when 
Miss Merrit could not be found; hours 


CLEM 


when she vanished with her horses and 
Reggie, or with her motor car and Reggie, 
Or on foot with Reggie. Through all his 
specific arguments anent Reggie’s good 
sense and his general arguments that a boy 
must have an experience or two, there had 
run, like a glaring thread, a disquieting 
doubt of the woman herself. For young 
Reginald Wines, arrived at years of dis- 
cretion, would be very much worth while, 
and it might easily occur to an adventuress, 
even to an honest woman struggling hon- 
estly for social advancement, that the com- 
ing years were more easily assured by at- 
taching the present immature ones. 

Given these previous reflections, there- 
fore, Lorimer faced a situation when the 
pained eyes of the boy’s mother met his in 
mute question; and facing them, he made 
something of a botch at lying like a gen- 
tleman, and the truths he had to tell were 
bitter ones. His only counsel, to give the 
boy his head and time, a bit of counsel 
based primarily on the eternal pitilessness 
of man to man in all affairs of love or 


CLEM 


matrimony, was not a counsel to satisfy 
here, and other than this he had none to 
offer. 

“The surest way to precipitate all things 
is to try to put a stop to anything,’' he re- 
peated several^ times. “One can’t meddle. 
Both he and the girl would resent it in- 
stantly, and rightly. He has come to the 
place at last, Frances, where you and I, 
both of us, are helpless. He must work 
out of this himself, just as any man’s ulti- 
mate salvation lies, finally, in his own 
hands.” 

But if he fell before the situation, Mrs. 
Wines rose to it gallantly, and after her 
departure, Lorimer sat frowning over the 
silken bonds she had wound about him with 
a feminine finesse. 

On this night there was to be a faint 
echo of last week’s charity fete in the form 
of a charity dance, and Lorimer, hitherto 
free to go or to stay away, was pledged 
now to go. As he sat there, after his mer- 
ciless captor had departed, though in sorry 


CLEM 


triumph after all, he stared sadly at the 
spot where, not long before, two young 
creatures had unwittingly betrayed much 
to eyes altogether unsympathetic. 

“I act a chivalrous role to-night/' he 
murmured dismally. ‘‘Special watch in 
murderers’ row, and if I succeed in don- 
ning the confessor’s hood, so much the bet- 
ter. And the girl — after all, the entire 
question resolves itself into this: is she or 
is she not — ” 

But at this point young Reggie Wines, 
healthy, happy, and buoyantly alive, 
vaulted lightly over the railing to suggest 
taking their deferred stroll. 

On their return they passed an open 
pavilion where Miss Merrit was holding 
court. She was still in the white linen and 
lace creation in which she had driven down 
the beach driveway behind her jet-black 
horses, and the number of men surround- 
ing her was appalling— might be, that is, 
to so young a lover. Lorimer glanced 
briefly at Reggie, and felt more discon- 


CLEM 

certed than he cared to confess, when he 
saw the boy^s face showed no trace of con- 
cern. He was too evidently sure of his 
ground. 

As they came directly opposite the 
pagoda-like structure, within full hearing 
of the somewhat loud talk and laughter, 
the girl turned slightly from her group of 
highly entertained men to smile brightly, 
sunnily, at Reggie Wines. Lorimer 
winced slightly at the significance of the 
glance, fleeting as a breath of the west 
wind, yet laden with the mystery of com- 
mon memories. There was nothing subtle, 
however, in the way in which she met 
Lorimer’s eyes in full gaze, with obvious 
recognition. Lorimer bowed, in return for 
that recognition which he felt had nothing 
whatever to do with their fugitive meeting 
in her gipsy tent a week before. The girl 
evidently knew him, and knew him thor- 
oughly. Under other conditions it might 
have flattered him somewhat, since he was 
no more than mortal man ; but this evening 


CLEM 


he felt no throb of satisfied vanity. Her 
recognition of him seemed not flattering so 
much as ominous. In a silence that was 
distinctly unrestful, he and Reginald 
walked the short remaining distance to 
their hotel. 


D73 


Ill 


L ater that evening, Lorimer, immo- 
^ lated on an altar which he himself had 
helped to rear, approached Clem Merrit, 
and took her card from her. 

“You remember me,” he asserted 
humbly. “You told me my fortune a 
week ago, which was altogether clever. 
Your recognition of me this afternoon 
makes me bold enough to dare this throng 
surging about you, and that without delay. 
I am taking the ninth.” 

“Everything in sight, that is,” said Clem 
Merrit gaily. “No, I was n't saving it up, 
not for anybody, unless it was Reggie, and 
he 's got his share, I think.” 

Lorimer scribbled his name with a smile. 
He thought that he would like to try the 
interesting experiment of putting a book 
of purest English prose into Miss Merrit's 
hands, and beseeching her to read there- 

Dsy 


CLEM 


from. He wondered if she might not 
make Addison and De Quincey, in their 
most exalted and sonorous moments, read 
like modern slang. It was not always her 
words which put the flavor of cant into her 
phrasings, although her speech was plenti- 
fully besprinkled with the paprika-like zest 
of colloquialisms. The more he listened to 
her, the more definite his feeling grew that 
it was the girl’s intonations which made 
her manner of speech distinctively her own. 

‘^The boy is fortunate,” he said, not 
without intention, as he returned her card. 

‘‘Yes,” agreed the girl. “He ’s got just 
about every other one, and then some. 
Yes, I remember you. I ’ve seen you all 
over the place lately. You ’re a great 
friend of the Wineses, are n’t you? I 
know lots of people here that way, by 
sight. You forever meet people here that 
way, till you know them like your grand- 
mother’s picture, and then, when you do 
the decent thing and speak — ” She drew 
her bare shoulders together and shivered 
exaggeratedly. “But you ’re not that 


CLEM 


sort,” she added. ‘‘Not if you ’re Reggie’s 
sort. Reggie ’s straight as a string.” She 
nodded her head at him with marked con- 
fidence, and smiled her large-hearted, irre- 
sistible smile. Evidently with him, for 
some reason not yet explained, she felt 
thoroughly en rapport. 

More than once, as he listened, Lorimer 
became convinced that here lay something 
which it behooved some one to meet and 
cope with to a finish. One might easily 
understand how a boy would fall powerless 
before such friendly beauty. There was 
no shred of boasting in her speech, and it 
was the absence of that ultra- feminine 
thing which stirred Lorimer to quick anx- 
iety. He knew well that Reggie was in- 
deed as straight as a string. It occurred to 
him just here, with the force of a totally 
new idea, that this girl might be possessed 
of the same quality; might mean all of 
what her assured words seemed to convey ; 
and then — what? 

“Here comes Jack!” the girl added. 
“Jack Lowe. He ’s the one who brought 


CLEM 

you in to have your palm read, you know. 
He ’s a great friend of yours and the 
Wineses, too, ain’t he? Well, he ’s a great 
friend of mine, too — to have met him two 
years ago, and not have run up against him 
since! Yes, I remember a great lot, one 
way and another. How do I know all the 
truck I read from your hand ? Oh, I don’t 
explain my little system. My book ’s my 
own, and if I give myself heavy odds no- 
body knows it but me. These hotel porches 
are enough, though, to put any canny body 
into the fortune-telling business, with their 
tattle and their gabble. I ’ll be round this 
corner when your turn comes. No, not 
with anybody special. Just floating 
round. A great deal nicer way, I think 1” 
Lorimer, dismissed, looked dutifully 
about him for his young cousin, who, in 
spite of her serious little face, and her 
serious little views, was as fond of motion 
as any twenty-year-old girl should be; but 
neither she nor Mrs. Wines was yet in evi- 
dence. Whereupon Mr. Lorimer heaved a 
sigh of infinite relief, and retired to an ob- 

1:41:1 


CLEM 


scure corner where he might reflect upon 
subtleties and values until such time as he 
should be compelled to hark to duty's call. 

Two hours later he found Clem Merrit, 
in her designated corner, floating round in 
the sense that she was not attached in the 
remotest manner to any woman there, al- 
though she was hemmed in by a double cor- 
don of men. The evening was warm, and 
many chiffons and flowers hung dejected, 
but among her dilapidated sisters Clem 
Merrit shone resplendent. Her gown was 
still fresh and perfect, though by nature 
perishable. She was cool and unflushed, 
and she breathed evenly. And her laugh 
was gayer and louder, and her eyes more 
purely blue and gleaming. 

As she saw Lorimer approaching, she 
reached forward and tapped a man smartly 
on the shoulder. 

‘‘Down in front, Mr. Prentiss !” she said, 
with her indescribable intonation which 
made common things seem fresh, and any- 
thing, old or new, common. “There ’s a 
man behind you I want to see." 


CLEM 


She swept the entire circle aside, with 
flattering indifference and speed, and 
swayed toward Lorimer, thoroughly at her 
ease. He had never seen her for an in- 
stant when she was not the embodiment of 
composure, and with his imagination in 
full play he could not conjure up the vision 
of a situation where she would not be 
mentally comfortable. 

She danced perfectly, and while she 
danced she talked incessantly of people and 
things, with an infectious good humor and 
a frank and beguiling confidence. Sud- 
denly she stopped with a pleased little cry. 

‘‘There ’s Mrs. Wines yonder, alone. 
I Ve sort of fallen in love with that woman 
at a distance, do you know ?” She laughed 
carelessly at her own folly. “Ordinarily I 
don’t like women much. I ’ve never met 
her,” she added. 

The inference was unmistakable, and 
Lorimer made it gratefully, thereby easing 
his spirit mightily. 

“Shall we go over to her?” he asked. 
There was a disgusted weariness in his 


CLEM 


voice, carefully held under though it was. 
He was altogether out of humor with his 
task, and he cursed circumstances vigor- 
ously as he looked down into the girl's 
frank, lovely e>'es. 

‘‘Yes, indeed!" said Clem Merrit em- 
phatically; and the effect was precisely as 
if she had said, “You bet!" “I actually 
ought to know Mrs. Wines," she continued 
easily, as they crossed the room together, 
“knowing Reggie so awfully well as I do. 
I Ve kept telling him it looked queer, and 
that she ’d be sure to think so." 

The next moment she was holding out 
her hand with thorough good-will to the 
black-gowned woman before her. It was 
not a small hand, yet for her it was not too 
large, being simply a part of her fine pro- 
portion. It was hardly a blue-blooded 
hand, but it was one which not one Ameri- 
can woman in ten thousand possesses, and 
it had had for some years every advantage 
which unremitting grooming could give it. 

‘ I 've been telling him," she said easily, 
“that I ought to know you, knowing Reg- 


CLEM 

gie so well. I Ve told Reggie lots of times 
you ’d think it was queer, him and me to- 
gether so much, and you and me per- 
fect strangers. I told him I reckoned he 
did n’t intend we should ever meet till we 
had to.” 

Her rich laugh rang out. For the frac- 
tion of a second Mrs. Wines caught her 
under lip hard ; then she spoke gently : 

‘‘Since you are a friend of my son’s — ” 

“Oh, that!” laughed the girl. “Yes, 
we ’re friends all right!” She nodded at 
Lorimer, neither with special significance 
nor with awkward consciousness ; rather as 
if certain signs were understood by the 
initiated, and as if she regarded him as one 
capable of such frankly certain interpreta- 
tion. She turned back to Mrs. Wines 
with what Lorimer translated as a certain 
condescension toward one not yet within 
the inner circle, and she dropped down on 
the divan where the older woman was sit- 
ting. Her pale draperies flowed lightly 
over the tissue of Mrs. Wines’ gown, and 
her white neck and shoulders and her 


CLEM 


golden head rose in exquisite relief against 
the dark-green velvet background. 

'‘You run along,” she said to Lorimer. 
“We don’t need you any longer, do we. 
Mrs. Wines? I ’ll cut a dance later and 
make it up.” Then, with a dismissing 
nod and smile, she turned to the woman 
beside her. 

“I ’ve been wanting to see you for days,” 
she said frankly. “I don’t take to women, 
as I was just telling him; most of them are 
a poor lot; but you took my fancy even 
before I had any idea you were Reggie’s 
mother, before I knew Reggie even. He ’s 
talked about you some.” She paused al- 
most hopefully. “I reckon he has n’t 
talked to yoh much about me, has he? 
Has n’t told you anything?” 

Mrs. Wines struggled with a sick dis- 
gust and a paralyzing fear. Her world 
swam before her eyes in a grim chaos. 

“My son has told me nothing,” she said 
at last, almost in a whisper. 

Clem Merrit sank back against the divan, 
and twisted her fan in her white fingers. 


CLEM 

For the first time she felt and showed a 
touch of nervousness, and with her strong, 
beautiful hands she worked almost sav- 
agely at the mother-of-pearl sticks. Sud- 
denly they snapped and she crushed the 
entire pearl and lace creation together, and 
flung it to the floor. 

“No more good !” she said, an odd thrill 
running through her voice and softening it 
strangely. “It matches this dress too — 
beats the fan that goes with it all hollow, 
and I got it three years ago, in Paris.^' She 
laughed without reason or happiness, a 
laugh whose frank pleasure in life was 
gone, eaten up in fierce self-consciousness. 
Then she turned back to the older woman, 
and faced her almost heroically, with a 
dumb honesty shining in her eyes. 

“Reggie ’s a nice boy,” she said, an odd 
hush in her voice. He 's just a boy too. 
...I’m twenty-six.” 

She pulled recklessly at one of her 
mauve orchids. Her head was bent and 
her eyes were on the flower. Mrs. Wines 
turned and stared stonily upon her, and for 


CLEM 


a second she endured and conquered a 
primal instinct to sound the scream of mor- 
tal combat. What an awful ordeal this thing 
was proving to be ! For in spite of her bit- 
ter shrinking from the girl, she felt with 
terror that a strange, unwelcome sympathy 
for this creature was creeping over her, 
and she sat motionless, caught fast in the 
relentless grasp of a situation she could not 
master nor control. 

Clem Merrit broke the silence defiantly, 
with a part of her new, terrible self-con- 
sciousness still upon her. “But where ’s 
the odds,” she demanded cogently, “if — ” 

Mrs. Wines laid a swift hand upon the 
girl’s arm, in desperate impulse to stop any 
admission, or confession, or confidence ; and 
with that simple act, which might subtly 
have invited confidence, there came an in- 
spiration to a deed so bold that she caught 
her breath hard. Under her touch the girl 
was sitting still and tense, with her color 
coming and going. At last Mrs. Wines 
broke the silence. 


CLEM 

‘^Are your engagements definite ones 
just now?” she asked. 

The girl stared, uncomprehending. 
Mrs. Wines paused for a scant second, and 
then went steadily on, ignoring that last 
chance of safe retreat. 

‘‘Our country place will be opened in a 
fortnight. Can you arrange to be one of 
our first group of guests? This is uncon- 
ventional— I shall regard rules later, and 
call— but I ask you to-night, because it just 
occurs to me that — you might care to come 
—to us.” 

Clem Merrit stared. Suddenly she 
smiled generously. “That 's no matter 
about the calling,” sh'e said cordially. 
“Not between us. Run in any time. 
We Te suite A4. Yes, I ’ll come. I 
have n’t got so many summer invitations 
that I can’t arrange it. Of course I ’ve 
just met you,” she added elaborately; “but 
I know Reggie, and I reckon it is n’t your 
house any more than it is his.” 

All her old sang-froid returned with a 


CLEM 


rush, and with it her brilliant, happy smile. 
‘‘There comes Reggie,’^ she added quickly, 
“looking all ways to see me here, with 
you.’' She laughed with a cordial appre- 
ciation of the young man’s state of mind. 

“I made sure you ’d given me the slip,” 
she said freely to him, as he joined them. 

It was at a great personal disadvantage 
that Reggie stood before the two women, 
a fact which he realized without adding 
thereby to his ease. That his mother had 
not looked at him once only added to his 
inner discomfort, however much it may have 
saved additional outward embarrassment. 
He sought for words, and found them not, 
save the conventional reminder of the pur- 
pose of his seeking. 

As Clem Merrit adjusted her filmy 
skirts, preparatory to another rhythmic 
flight, Mrs. Wines responded convention- 
ally. 

“Yes, I am glad to have met you,” she 
murmured. The words were of the flattest, 
but she was incapable then of attaining any 
further verbal achievement. She was look- 


CLEM 


ing at them both now with her grande 
dame air, hers so much by nature that it 
slipped at times over her sincerest cor- 
diality, and under its influence a touch of 
her new embarrassment came back to 
Clem. Reggie saw both things, his mother's 
hauteur and Clem Merrit’s confusion; and 
he threw back his shoulders with a gesture 
which his mother knew, and turned to the 
girl. 

‘‘I must hurry you away," he reminded 
her boyishly, “if you care for any of this 
two-step." 

“I do care," said the girl. “We 'll 
vamoose then. See you later, Mrs. Wines." 

The mother watched them drift away, 
her ears smitten with screaming echoes of 
the girl's parting words, tainted with the 
verbiage of the streets, wrested from the 
depths of her resources to cover her un- 
welcome confusion. If she could have 
been deceived in the girl's manner and 
words, there was that in Reggie’s bearing, 
a new-found manhood showing through 
his boyish confusion, which made her feel 


CLEM 

the seriousness of the situation as she had 
never felt it. With a perception new to 
him, he had felt the unseen stress of the 
last moment, and there was no mistaking 
the fact that he had gone to the girl’s de- 
fense against his mother. 

And she, his mother, what had she done ? 
The girl would come, of course. . . . Her 
heart stood still with fear. What had she 
done? ... At last she put Virginia in 
other hands for the remainder of the even- 
ing, and went away to try to reason out 
what has no reason to it, ever — the first 
serious love experience of one’s first and 
only born. 

And while his mother faced a sleepless 
night, her young son was listening with a 
great and growing wonder to the glad tid- 
ings which his beautiful companion was 
gleefully imparting to him. 

‘Tt ’s fine, Reggie,” she concluded heart- 
ily. ‘‘With all the fun you say there is 
there! And your mother ’s lovely! I 
know she thought it was queer we had n’t 


CLEM 


met before. I told her you were shy, that 
it was n’t my fault ! I ’ve kept telling you 
we ’d like each other. Over yonder it ’s 
less crowded. Come on, Reggie. Let ’s 
get out of the push !” 


IV 



wo weeks later Lorimer walked down 


^ a country station platform to meet his 
young host waiting for him in a natty run- 
about. 

‘‘Glad to see you, old man!” he called 
out, with a fair assumption of the man 
about town which vastly amused Lorimer. 
“It ’s a jolly fine thing, your getting down 
here to-night. Nobody ’s here yet, and 
we dl have things our own way.” He 
reached down a strong arm for Lorimer’s 
suit cases. “Give Matthews your checks. 
He dl fetch the rest of your traps. Jump 
in.” 

“So no one ’s here,” said Lorimer, after 
he had complied with Reggie’s mandate, 
and while they were swinging across the 
tracks toward the road which led to The 
Pines. “I was fearful that everything 
would be in full swing or settled down.” 


[:s4] 


CLEM 


'‘Things have n’t started yet,” replied the 
young host. “Vee came over here with 
mother a week ago, and helped straighten 
things out while the workmen were still here, 
and I got here just day before yesterday. I 
waited over — wanted to bring Jack Lowe 
with me, but he got stuck on a shabby piece 
of rock and some rotting seaweed, and 
would n’t budge. He said he ’d been look- 
ing for that ‘tone’ for five years, and he ’s 
sitting down there on a bit of beach right 
now, painting for fair life. What have 
you been doing since you dropped ,us all 
like hot cakes, and pegged back to town?” 

“I had to do some work over again,” re- 
plied Lorirner. “Don’t you mention these 
last two weeks to me again. I rejoice, 
Reggie, that you ’re no incipient genius !” 

“Me!” ejaculated Reggie, with superb 
disregard of his parts of speech. “Thank 
God, no! I don’t mind the college work, 
since you ’ve let me off that hanged math. ; 
but I ’m going into Wall Street, and corner 
something, as soon as you let me up on 
college. Not but what it ’s all right for 


CLEM 


another year, considering I ’m Senior 
then ; but after that it’s high time I was out 
fishing in a little pond all for myself.” 

thought you were going to travel for 
a year or two,” Lorimer observed thought- 
lessly. The boy’s face flushed. 

^‘That ’s all off,” he said hurriedly. 
“I ’ll be of age by then — I won't have time 
to loaf round seeing things. I ’ll have to be 
doing something — making my pile.” He 
laughed nervously. 

‘^Tell you,” he added quickly, without 
waiting for comment upon his sudden 
change of plans, comment indeed which 
Lorimer hesitated to offer, “I want you to 
do a nice little favor for me this week. 
There ’s going to be a crowd here so mixed, 
it brings tears to my eyes to think of it, and 
I don’t get the hang of the confounded 
situation, how mother ever came to mix it 
so; and even if Cora Taylor did get 
typhoid, there was n’t any pressing need of 
mother ’s rushing round to fill her place. 
Now, you ’ll do the square thing, won’t 
you, old man, and make things comfort- 


CLEM 


able, for she likes you down to the ground ; 
said you were a good sort, and a fine fel- 
low, and I don’t want her to feel left out 
of it or uncomfortable; and you never can 
tell how the other confounded girls are go- 
ing to jump.” 

Lorimer so far forgot his great fatigue 
as to turn fully half about, that he might 
better survey his incoherent host. 

“You don’t mind stopping that patter to 
do a little easy talking now, do you?” he 
inquired with much pathos. 

Reggie cut at his well-going animal with 
reprehensible abstraction. “Yes, I do 
mind!” he said firmly. “Some things I 
don’t care to talk over, and between men 
there ’s no use. You can understand things 
without confounded talking. But you keep 
an eye to the wind, and an ear to the 
ground, and do what you think ought to be 
done, when it ought to be done; and even 
then, even you can’t mix oil and water. 
It ’s a hanged unlucky deal I” 

They had entered the gate which marked 
the beginning of the Wines estate, and 

1:573 


CLEM 


were speeding rapidly along the pine-lined 
avenue which led to the house. Lorimer 
began to whistle mournfully the latest 
thing in sentimental song lore, and did not 
speak until the journey was ended, and 
Reggie had deposited him unceremoniously 
at the short branch driveway which led 
directly to the house. 

“I ’ll just get around to the stables,” he 
said easily, “and finish arrangements for 
meeting that mob to-morrow, and you 
might take your things, too ; you may need 
’em before I get back.” 

So Lorimer, still whistling dismally, 
went slowly up the foot-path with a suit 
case, and was met at the veranda steps by 
his hostess and his cousin, and Reggie’s 
inhospitality was mourned over, and Lori- 
mer was comforted with flagons of what- 
ever nature he wished. 

That night dinner was a small affair for 
four, served on a screened veranda over- 
looking the ocean, which was radiant with 
color and loveliness. The dinner was satis- 
fying and delightful, yet a certain restraint 


CLEM 


hung over them all. Reggie frowned por- 
tentously to himself more than once. Vir- 
ginia sat through the silences, busy with 
her own thoughts, the only one entirely un- 
affected by the slight strain of the hour. 
Mrs. Wines was openly abstracted, and 
Lorimer followed the example of those 
about him, and indulged in grateful repose. 

An hour or so after dinner, while they 
were sitting quietly about the bare table, 
Virginia slipped away to the music-room, 
to which place she soon summoned Reggie, 
and began a laborious task of putting him 
through a rehearsal of a new effort in 
topical songs, a proceeding which bade fair 
to consume the evening, since the song was 
quite new, and young Mr. Wines’s ear was 
notoriously poor. And then at last Mrs. 
Wines turned to Lorimer, lying lazily back 
in his chair. 

“You left us suddenly, Drake,” she mur- 
mured. “No special summons?” 

Lorimer explained his recall, and re- 
ceived satisfying sympathy. “In fact,” he 
concluded, “I ’ve been too busy to do 


CLEM 


more than wire you to-day that I hoped to 
get down to-night. I expected to break 
into things sadly, and I find I am a first 
arrival.” 

‘‘Yes,” Mrs. Wines assented absently. 
After a moment she roused herself. “I, 
too, changed some plans,” she said. “I 
am intending to ask your cooperation, 
Drake, in making a delicate experiment 
more of a success than it can possibly be 
without it. Two weeks ago I did a thing 
on pure impulse — ” 

There fell a lingering pause; Lorimer 
wriggled further down in his chair. A 
cooler breeze swept up to them from the 
sea. He smiled faintly; this was evidently 
the bothersome crystal which had disturbed 
young Reginald’s peace, about to be set 
free from the matrix, if figure might be 
pressed so far. It was an odd thing to find 
Mrs. Wines uncertain over any act of hers ; 
to discover that she had acted at last on 
something other than pure, sweet reason. 
It was she who broke the stillness. 

“In two days Miss Merrit joins us here.” 


CLEM 


Life, after all, holds surprises, and Mr. 
Lorimer sat slowly up ; only to sink deeper 
into his chair. Was mere man ever to ar- 
rive at the ultimate analysis of the feminine 
heart, that startling seat of trouble and up- 
rising, sedition and revolution, which has 
swayed the world since the world began ! 

As the silence did not lift, Lorimer 
rightly concluded the next move in the little 
game to be his. 

‘‘Really!’' he murmured. “You ’ll find 
her an addition, no doubt.” His lips 
curved into a smile which was almost a 
sneer. How exquisitely cruel the gentlest 
of women could prove themselves! From 
the music-room came the insistent sound 
of the piano as Virginia’s steel-strung 
fingers thumped emphatic time for Reg- 
gie’s new song and pas de seul. Lorimer’s 
eyebrows arched themselves into a line 
which went harmoniously with his lips. 

“Reginald, Reginald !” he murmured. 
“How much, how exceeding much you 
have to answer for !” Lorimer did not re- 
joice in a fondness for the all-prevailing 


CLEM 


ragtime rage; nor, his ear being acute to 
misery, did he find any pleasure in a seem- 
ingly hopeless rehearsal. 

Mrs. Wines moved at last, emphatically, 
in her chair. ‘‘And you, too, judge me!” 
she breathed resentfully. “So does my son 
condemn my tact, my good sense. Does 
your judgment, being riper, go deeper, to 
the very springs of human emotion — devo- 
tion,”. she added somberly. Then she spoke 
with entire change of tone and manner. 
“Reggie urges that the group will fail to 
combine.” There was in her last words 
a defiance mild but firm as the eternal. It 
was evidently as far as possible from her 
desire that the coming group should fuse 
into a well-organized whole. 

“Farda Grantham!” Lorimer catalogued 
slowly. “A Brahms-mad creature! Dell 
and Eaton Gresham, unashamed globe-trot- 
ters! Jack Lowe, painter of the stream 
and the sea! One Reggie Wines, a Har- 
vard youth with a nice manner and be- 
witched ! One Drake Lorimer ! Little 
Virginia and one Lady Frances! No, it 

1:62: 


t 


CLEM 

does n’t seem that the new addition will 
blend to a perfect draw !” He leaned for- 
ward quickly. 

“It will be a little hard on her, don’t you 
think?” he asked. “Just a little hard?” 

Mrs. Wines flushed, less under hidden 
censure in Lorimer’s voice than because of 
her own thoughts. She knew the rush of 
blood was great enough to be plainly appa- 
rent beneath the almost full moon ; but she 
drew herself up with her own fine manner. 

“Of all my guests,” she said with 
hauteur, “no one will have the considera- 
tion shown her that will be shown Miss 
Merrit. So thoroughly am I convinced that 
I have acted on ill-founded impulse that I 
was about to ask you to be considerate of 
impossible things — to help me — to help her. 
I am not asking you, either, to interfere in 
one moment of the time which Reggie will 
doubtless call his.” 

“I could n’t do that, you know,” said 
Lorimer. 

“No,” assented the mother wearily. “It 
would n’t be best, of course.” 


CLEM 


Again Lorimer’s smile came and went. 
They agreed on the'^vital question, but fdr 
totally different reasons. He reflected 
women’s methods, when they found Ihenir'- 
selves in tight places, were often radicalj^ 
unscrupulous, and he discovered, with a' ^ 
certain disappointment, that this womaJ^C* 
intense absorption in what was to her thf 
greatest phase of the pitiless problem before 
her, had lost to her temporarily her fine sense 
of values. But a part of her genuine remorse 
seemed born, not so much frorn a sense of 
her fault in having ignored the finer lines 
of hospitality, as from secret, hidden sym- 
pathy for the girl, existing side by side 
with the real repulsion she felt for her. 
The situation presented a living question 
for research, as to which quality it argued 
stronger for: the catholic breadth of sym- 
pathy in one woman, or the power of the 
crude human soul in the other, which com- 
pelled consideration. 

Half an hour later Lorimer roused him- 
self to find the veranda deserted; so im- 
mersed had he been in seductive analysis 


CLEM 


and synthesis, that he had not known when 
Mrs. Wines slipped away. From the music- 
room there came still the insistent thump 
of the piano, as Virginia marked relentless, 
patient time for Reggie, who was still 
struggling with the same new song. Lori- 
mer got slowly up, and stretched his arms 
above his head. 

^Wes,” he said slowly, “it ’s a hard situa- 
tion, and an unfair test. She can’t come 
out of it save in one way. And the boy 
will undoubtedly see, and she — will not— I 
trust, yet dare not hope. It ’s a clever 
move, cruelly clever, dear lady of the gentle 
eyes !” 

He went into the house, avoiding the 
strongly accentuated music-room with in- 
tention and ease, and went up to his own 
rooms. Once there, with a satisfying sense 
of solitude at last enveloping him, he still 
pondered on his problem with frowning 
brow. 


nes] 


5 


V 


wo evenings later, as the sun was 



X sending its last long rays across the 
tops of the dark pine-trees, gilding them 
to Christmas gaudiness, Mrs. Wines left 
her guests in their veranda corner, and 
went quickly down the steps to meet the 
latest addition to her group, whom Reggie 
had just brought from the station. 

Clem Merrit stepped lightly down from 
the high trap. Her beauty was as flawless 
as ever, and her gown was Puritan in cut 
and color, yet, despite its extreme tailored 
severity, it gave one the instantaneous im- 
pression of barbaric gorgeousness. Vir- 
ginia Garnet, in gold-embroidered silks and 
ropes of pearls and rubies, would not have 
borne the air of assertive wealth and osten- 
tation which this man-tailored creature car- 
ried with her as she shook hands delight- 
edly with her hostess, and went up the steps 


1:663 


CLEM 


beside her, turning once to wave cheerfully 
at Reggie as he went on down the drive- 
way. 

‘‘Not a bit,’' she said in answer to Mrs. 
Wines’s patent query. “Traveling never 
tires me, and this little run down was great 
fun.” Her clear voice carried to the further- 
most corner of the breezy veranda, and all 
conversation stopped, suspended in mid-air. 

“Goodness me !” she exclaimed a second 
later, in frankest admiration, as she en- 
tered the hall and stared about her. Her 
voice still reached the group outside. “This 
is a fine old place. As much space here as 
in a hotel rotunda. Yes, an hour ’s plenty 
time to dress.' Reggie said we might be 
late, but I wanted to come the bridge drive. 
He said it beat anything round here to 
kingdom come, and I wanted to make sure 
he had n’t lied!” Her rich, unfettered 
laugh rang out. “He had n’t. It sure 
makes other things look like thirty cents 
in dirty pennies. Yes, Mrs. Wines, I ’d 
like my trunks right up. I never try to 
travel in a hand-bag nor li'^^e in a suit-case. 


CLEM 


No, I did n’t bring my maid along. Her 
sister ’s just over, poor soul, and sick, and 
I did n’t have the heart to make her leave 
the poor strange thing alone, so I left 
Jeanne behind.” She said it as if the maid 
were pure Scotch instead of the French 
treasure she was. “But that does n’t mat- 
ter. I don’t have to depend on another 
woman to dress me, though I might have 
to run in and ask you to hook me into any- 
thing princesse, you know — ” 

As the voice died away in the far dis- 
tance, every one sitting without drew a 
little breath indicative of various emotions. 
Mrs. Gresham, sitting alert and thoroughly 
alive, dropped heavily back into her low 
basket-chair. 

“What under heaven !” she breathed. 
She glanced at her husband, and at Vir- 
ginia. The latter looked worried, and the 
former shook a warning head. But Mrs. 
Gresham was never bound by conventional 
reminders of marital authority, and she 
touched Virginia’s arm with emphasis. 

“No wonder Aunt Frances gave us dull 


CLEM 


generalities about the expected guest and 
cleverly omitted the name— how did she 
manage that last ! What 's up, Vee ?” 

‘‘Mrs. Wines just asked her,'^ Virginia 
replied stupidly, “and she came.'' 

“I think perhaps she might!" observed 
Mrs. Gresham with decision. “Indeed, if 
she had refused, it would have beat — king- 
dom come I" 

Under cover of the subdued laugh which 
broke out about her, she edged her chair 
nearer Lorimer's; both of them reminded 
by that simple act of the afternoon hardly 
more than a fortnight before, when this 
identical group discussed with untram- 
melled freedom this new, bewildering ad- 
dition to their quiet little party. Dell had 
been on the links ever since luncheon, and 
she was in more or less disarray, a usual 
condition with her, and one which never so 
slightly detracted from the fascination of 
her personality. Her hair was blown all 
ways, and her white linen dress was a far 
call from immaculateness; but she was a 
confirmed camper, and much roughing it 


CLEM 


in all parts of the world had brought her 
at last to the point where its conditions be- 
came her, even in civilized spots. 

“One heard all sorts of nonsense down 
yonder,’’ she said, in an undertone dis- 
tinctly seductive, nodding her head in the 
direction where she fondly supposed the 
gossip to which she referred had emanated. 
“Of course there was heaps of gossip of 
all sorts, but after all, I never dreamed it 
could be anything like this looks — hm? 
Boys always are wild over older women — 
I laid it all to that — down there !” 

Lorimer sighed and bent toward her 
small, listening ear. “I read it precisely as 
you read it, my dear Dell. So pleasant a 
thing to meet a kindred soul; — as you say, 
boys are always wild over older women. 
And so, since it is nothing serious, but a 
merely natural condition which we face, let 
us, I beg, treat it in that comfortable man- 
ner.” 

Dell grimaced. “How did Reggie dare 
invite her, Drake, and how did Aunt 
Frances ever bring herself to ratify the 
invitation ?” 


CLEM 


“Mrs. Wines invited her, herself,’’ Vir- 
ginia put in, coolly, across her embroidery- 
hoop. 

“Do you know that, Vee?” Dell shot the 
question at her, and, after the girl’s nod of 
assent, her black eyes glowed. 

“Without Reggie’s invitation first ! But 
if Aunt Frances is the only one blamable, 
then-” 

She stopped short, her eyes widening 
enormously, and suddenly a sharp “Ah!” 
sped through her set little teeth. She 
glanced at Lorimer, who refused to meet 
her eyes, and then she leaned back and 
laughed long and softly. 

“It is a pleasure that you find it so amus- 
ing, Dell,” Farda Grantham remarked 
coldly. “I, for one, can’t understand it. 
If the party were larger — but we are so 
small ; no one here but Drake and Jack, and 
you two. We shall be thrown together 
constantly, day in and night out— there will 
be no escape.” 

“Precisely the point!” ejaculated Mrs. 
Gresham delightedly. 

“The Carrols were to have come, and 


CLEM 


Andy Logan/’ Farda continued with dis- 
tinct irritation; “but Mrs. Wines is n’t ex- 
pecting them now for another fortnight. 
It ’s a smaller party than we Ve ever had — 
and such an addition, to a small party.” 

“Precisely!” Dell uttered again. “Jack, 
would you speak for ten dollars ?” 

Lowe shook his big head. “You are 
speaking for me, with every elocutionary 
grace,” he remarked, with a slight bow in 
the lady’s direction. Whereat her eyes 
flashed again in appreciation of his enig- 
matic utterance. 

“Well, I ’m glad you ^ve known her be- 
fore,” she remarked genially. “And if I 
remember, you think her a rather good sort 
in a way.” 

“We have met,” Lowe replied. He 
lighted another cigarette carefully, and 
then, through some tiny smoke wreaths, he 
looked deliberately at Dell. 

“You ’ll find her distinctly your sort, 
Dell, in fundamentals. She ’s hardly a 
woman’s woman, but she ’s really a curi- 
ously interesting creature. In an abso- 


CLEM 

lately free atmosphere she fits in without 
much of a jar — because there not an 
ounce of pretense about her.” 

“Then that should settle the matter of 
ease here,” said Farda, overhearing. “No 
one of us knows a more delightfully free 
spot than this roof.” 

Lowe smiled a little. “Absorb the atmos- 
phere thereof, Farda,” he suggested. “She 
won’t care for Brahms, but she ’ll like your 
syncopated Cuban music and your north- 
ern folk agonies, if I ’m not mistaken, and 
she herself can sing you a song that will 
carry you back to the Suwanee River, if 
you ’ve ever been fortunate enough to roam 
thereabouts. So spare her, of your mercy 
— Brahms !” 

“I ’ll ask her to sing, personally!” Dell 
graciously volunteered. “Understand, 
Farda, Brahms is cut out for some days.” 

“And all that Brahms stands for, 
Farda,” Lowe implored. Meantime Dell 
turned back once more to Lorimer. 

“Don’t worry!” she said lightly. “I 
shall take the entire situation with the ut- 


CLEM 

most aplomb. We are kindred spirits, you 
and I — as we both say, boys are boys! 
And I ’ll be honey therefore to that funny 
thing up yonder.” 

She looked toward an upper room not 
far from their right, whose great beauty 
was a massive oriel window. From it had 
issued for some time a steady murmur, and 
now, evidently with a change of place on 
the speaker’s part, there came therefrom a 
ringing voice : 

‘‘Open that dark leather one, and take 
out the top tray. Save all the tissue paper ; 
1 did n’t bring any more, and I may pick 
up any time and get out. Lay that tray on 
the floor and open that trunk yonder. Get 
out the petticoats in it, those two yellow 
silk ones, and the chiffon ones. Find the 
slippers and stockings to match them. 
Never mind my hair; I ’m tending to that. 
Open that box and hand me the pins in it. 
Then hand me that powder-box— the whole 
thing.” 

Mrs. Gresham leaned slightly forward, 
her whole childish body tense. She was 


CLEM 


shamelessly listening, and after a slight 
break, the voice went ringing on : 

“Give a good shake to those skirts and 
fluff the bottom flounces. You ’re Mrs. 
Wines’s maid? I won’t need you much; 
but when I do, I want you on the run. 
Here, take this — here! What? My good- 
ness, she ’ll never know unless you peach 
on yourself — I never run about giving 
folks away. Have you got those things 
laced yet? I ’ll kill Jeanne for putting 
them in without strings. Now take hold 
here and draw up the third string first- 
now put your hands on my hips, while I 
null these strings taut — ” 

Dell looked about her with much satis- 
faction as the corner cleared magically, 
leaving only her and Lorimer in possession. 

“I always did say she knew how to— 
dress I” put in that lady. 

“I fear the unimpeccable Rachel has 
fallen,” Lorimer murmured sadly, with 
considerate reverting to an earlier topic. 
“I did n’t hear her refuse what her mis- 
tress hath forbidden.” 


CLEM 


‘^Rachel has that gentle voice which is 
woman’s chiefest charm,” Mrs. Gresham 
replied with great condonement in her eyes. 
“That ’s one of Aunt Frances’ feudal fads 
anyway — nobody forbids it now — so don’t 
you run about giving folks away, either. 
There ’s one thing I like about that girl,” 
she added, picking up a book preparatory 
to departure. “If I were her sort, mush- 
room growth, you know, the sight of Aunt 
Frances’ butler would give me heart dis- 
ease. But Forbes will not move this lady, 
though she may stir him out of his steel 
riveted calm. If he does quell her, I ’ll de- 
part on the next train, if you say, and 
leave my baby of an Eaton to her clutches, 
if she wants him. But Forbes won’t scare 
her, a fact which argues something for her 
— what, I don’t know. I ’m going in to 
plot out my course for to-night. It ’s 
time for good resolves — we ’ve all been 
nothing but piazza cats for the last half 
hour.” 

She gathered up the last one of her be- 
longings and went away. Lorimer re- 


CLEM 


moved his glasses and began to polish them 
with infinite care. As he adjusted them, 
the voice above rang out once more : 

“Work me into this like wax, now. No- 
body can fool with this dress. Beautiful? 
Well, it ought to be ! That 's right, that 's 
the idea. I don’t believe you ’ve whitened 
my shoulders far enough down. I told 
you this was double extra low cut. I know 
they ’re white now, but it ’s warm to-night 
— that ’s right. Now rub it in, down my 
back, further down than that. When I 
lean over, and I ’m liable to lean any way 
I want to—” 

At which late stage Mr. Lorimer fol- 
lowed an example which he might have, 
with credit, emulated before, that of those 
Arabs famed in song and story, and silently 
stole away. 


VI 


M ISS MERRIT kept dinner waiting for 
some little time past the dinner-hour, 
hut when she appeared, the sight of her 
was worth a spoiled entree or two. Her 
dress was one golden shimmer of palest 
yellow crepe, with one dash of black, so 
bold, so ringing, that only an artist’s mind 
could have conceived it, and an artist’s 
hand dared place it. It made whiter 
her perfect shoulders, bluer her eyes, and 
her hair and dress more gloriously sunny. 

There was never much formality about 
dinner at The Pines, but Mrs. Wines raised 
her eyebrows at Lorimer when the much- 
tried Forbes at length announced it, and 
he moved obediently toward Clem Merrit. 
That young woman recognized him by a 
slight and significant flicker of her eyelids, 
and her full free smile. 

^Tirst I see you, and then I don’t,” she 

i:78n 


CLEM 


remarked, as they traversed the long hall. 
‘‘I had that dance with you down yonder, 
and the next I see of you, you Ve here. 
Some of these people I know; him, and 
her — She nodded toward several with 
much real indifference, and held out a cor- 
dial left hand to Lowe, who emerged at 
that moment from the library and joined 
the procession to the dining-room. 

“We ’d meet up under an African bam- 
boo-tree, would n’t we!” she said to him 
gaily. Then she turned back to Lorimer. 

“I owe you a vote of thanks,” she re- 
marked easily. “I never was in a crowd of 
this kind before, and I doubt if I ’d been 
here to-night, if it had n’t been for that 
introduction you gave me to her. I like 
to mix with new people — people are the 
only things worth while, anyway. I think 
it ’s going to be great sport. Two days 
you ’ve been here ? It looks like I ’d missed 
some of the fun. I was just saying to Mr. 
Lorimer,” she added to the entire table, as 
they were being seated, “that I was down- 
right sorry you ’d all beaten me here by a 


CLEM 

day. I don’t see, Reggie, why you did n’t 
tip me off.” 

She smiled gaily down at the boy, and he 
returned an answer in a manner cool 
enough to prove himself, for every eye was 
turned upon him. Then her eyes fell upon 
the coldly classic features of Miss Gran- 
tham, and she nodded at her airily. 

‘‘He knows nothing does me so much 
good as turning myself loose for a ripping 
good time, and you ’re right with me, I 
take it,” she said. 

Farda looked up in shocked amazement. 
Her lips moved slightly; then a burning 
wave of color swept over her face. She 
choked back some equally heated utterance, 
and turned deliberately toward Lowe, who 
was sitting beside her with a half smile on 
his face. Clem Merrit stared in her turn 
with open and equally great astonishment. 
Then she, too, turned aside with equal de- 
liberation and far more coolness. 

“Was that a facer?” she demanded 
under cover of the talk which rose in a 
swelling surge all about the table. To 

[Sol 



CLEM 

Lorimer’s fine ear there seemed nothing in 
her voice but frankly amused curiosity. 

“I fancy,” he said deliberately, ‘‘that 
Miss Grantham—” 

“You 're excused,” said Miss Merrit 
promptly. “Good-night !” 

And Lorimer took his fall with a laugh. 

Another course was being served. Clem 
Merrit fingered the array of silver before 
her with indecision. Then she shot a fur- 
tive glance toward Mrs. Wines, and, as 
she briskly picked up a fork, she met Lori- 
mer's eyes. Her own flickered for a 
second, and then she looked back at him 
boldly. 

“Well, yes,” she said coolly. “I did n’t 
know which one, and I don’t care for a 
bluff myself, unless it ’s a good one. 
You ’re sharp.” 

Lorimer indulged in another rare laugh. 
“And yet,” he added after a pause, “I 
doubt not that you can put up a bluff when 
occasion calls. This little trifle— it does n’t 
really matter, do you think ?” 

“You read me well,” Clem replied 


CLEM 

promptly. ‘'Yes, when the pot 's worth 
while I don’t stay out because I don’t stand 
pat on a royal flush.” She flickered her 
eyelids at him again, after a droll fashion 
which he was beginning to recognize. 

“All the same,” she resumed after an- 
other pause, “don’t you watch me too close. 
I ’m out of the running already, outclassed 
or underrated, and I declare to goodness, 
I don’t know whether your sort is slower 
or swifter.” 

“No doubt we have among us here one 
or two merely average plugs,” returned 
Lorimer cheerfully. 

“Is that a facer, too?” asked the girl. 
“Well, I don’t care. I can stand a man’s 
come-back any day. Women! — And 
then, you see, I don’t call myself fast.” 

Lorimer’s lips parted in horrified haste, 
but the girl swept cheerfully on. 

“Oh, shunt all that!” she said with her 
lovely smile. “I don’t hold grudges. And 
women do ordinarily call me that. Oh, I 
know. Men don’t, because men know me 
better. Women are nasty little things. 


CLEM 


don't you think, and I can’t be judged by 
the general run of them. But,” she smiled 
charmingly at him, “even a tortoise is 
faster than some animals.” 

Meantime Farda turned to Lowe, who 
was watching the progress of affairs across 
the table with interested absorption. 

“This is dreadful!” she murmured. 
“And I dare say, merely because I say so, 
you ’ll defend everything that ’s happened; 
defend it to the last ditch. Jack. Well, 
you ’ll soon be there, that ’s one comfort. 
Your battling will be short.” 

“Oh, not in the least because you say so, 
my dear Farda,” returned Lowe sooth- 
ingly. “I am never moved by prejudice, 
as I endeavored to prove to you some hours 
back.” He glanced into her pale face and 
laughed delightedly. “Brace up, Farda. 
“You ’ll allow this feeling to carry you to 
lengths before long, and you can make a 
good guess, can’t you, as to which side 
Mrs. Wines will be on I So don’t give way, 
my dear girl, in heaven’s name ! There ’ll 
be enough, without that sort of a fiasco.” 


CLEM 


He settled back indifferently under 
Farda’s disdainful stare. She was a girl of 
much cold brilliancy, who was possessed of 
much intelligence and was unhampered by 
any emotions, being a pitiless creature, to 
herself as well as to others. Her likes were 
few, and her dislikes were deep and lasting. 

A few moments later they all rose, the 
men with the women, and drifted about 
the rooms and the verandas. For the time 
being Lorimer placidly disregarded Reg- 
gie’s manifest attempt to corral the latest 
arrival, and remained in clear possession 
of his new acquaintance, though Reggie 
hovered near with an amount of cool intent 
praiseworthy in one so young. Half an 
hour later, while Reggie still lingered, he 
heard Clem Merrit answer a question 
whose asking had frozen his blood. 

‘^Yes, I sing,” she said calmly, in the 
full hush of an unaccountable silence which 
had fallen over the room. “My father al- 
ways said he was going to have me learn 
to sing, and he paid double rates to get a 
big Paris teacher to take me. At first de 


CLEM 

Marronville said he would n’t do it under 
any circumstances, but my father fixed it, 
and I studied almost a whole year. He 
said that for pure strength my voice was 
about the biggest thing he ever — ” 

Mrs. Gresham came forward quickly, 
her eyes shining like black agates, skilfully 
avoiding Lorimer’s fixed gaze. 

“Then do sing for us. Miss Merrit !” she 
cried. “Something— anything!” She would 
not yet meet Lorimer’s eyes, but she came 
dangerously close to him, and across the 
entire length of the room she called to Mrs. 
Wines, whose face by now was a white 
mask. 

“Do ask her. Aunt Frances!” she called, 
with a daring of which she was gleefully 
conscious. 

“Oh, I ’ll be glad to,” the girl said calmly, 
turning surprised eyes upon the insistent 
clamorer, and to her intense gratitude Mrs. 
Wines realized that the situation was 
ended. Nothing could help or hinder now. 
Yet she flushed painfully under a look 
which Reggie flashed at her. It was very 


CLEM 


clear that Reggie excused nothing nor any- 
body ; that he was passionately angry. 

And in the midst of byplay and side 
scene, all unconscious thereof, and all 
unawed by the silence which still hung 
heavy over the room, Clem Merrit walked 
over to the piano. 

‘'Most of my songs are coon,’’ she said 
genially, over her wonderful shoulder. 
“But I ’ll give you the Jewel Song — from 
‘Faust,’ ” she added in thoughtful explana- 
tion. 

It was her entire preliminary, and she 
dashed into the aria blithely. 

Lowe had edged his way carefully 
around the room, and by the time she 
ended, had contrived to displace Lorimer at 
the piano. In the pregnant silence which 
met her closing notes, he bent down to her. 
Reggie had given up the chase at last, and 
was standing, a miserable side-fixture, 
against the opposite wall. 

“Bully !” said Lowe in the entirely tone- 
less voice with which he was wont to ex- 
press his greatest pleasure. “Now, do me 


CLEM 


a favor; sing that Georgia coon song you 
used to sing while Denys was laying on his 
layers of paint — 

She laughed in frank pleasure, and broke 
into a rollicking coon song. By all stand- 
ards of coon song literature she sang the 
thing rarely well, and when she finished 
this second effort there was liberal applause 
— from the men. She cast a quick, invol- 
untary glance over her shoulder, and her 
laughing eyes focused themselves on Mrs. 
Wines’s face. 

Instantly the girl’s face changed expres- 
sion and color. What she had seen in the 
elder woman’s eyes had shocked her. She 
caught her lip hard between her teeth, and 
then she rose, so abruptly that the piano 
seat was knocked headlong to the floor. 

‘‘No!” she said curtly, in response to the 
insistent requests, always from the men, 
for more songs. 

She took a few steps b?ck across the 
room, but half way over she hesitated, and 
finally stopped, for a second isolated, al- 
though a fringe of curious eyes stared at 


CLEM 


her, and half a dozen people stood within 
reach of her clenched hands. Her lip was 
still caught hard between her teeth, and 
her mouth was twisted and distorted, as if 
she were suffering physical pain. For a 
second — which was longer to her than 
many burning hours — no one stirred. 
Then, from the far end of the room, like 
a young prince, sweeping his guests to the 
right and the left of him, Reggie came 
imperiously, straight to Clem. 

‘‘The moon is just climbing the pines,” 
he said defiantly. “I ’m going to take you 
out to watch it.” 

As he touched her arm a look of pas- 
sionate gratitude shone in her eyes, but she 
turned to the men about her with all and 
more of her old, bold gaiety. 

“Not to-night,” she reiterated. “This 
place got into my blood driving over from 
the station. Come, Reggie, let 's clear.” 

They swept past Lorimer, past Mrs. 
Wines, pale and frozen, past Virginia and 
Lowe, and stepped through a long window 
onto the stone-flagged veranda without. 


CLEM 

Another moment, and the night swallowed 
them up. 

A little later, and those left unceremo- 
niously behind made general exodus to the 
verandas. But one end, the entire east 
side, was left, by tacit consent, for those 
two who held it by priority of occupation. 
The shifting shadows showed now and 
then the silvery gleaming of a woman’s 
dress; sometimes the woman herself in 
misty outline against the great pillars. 
And all through the evening’s talk which 
followed, both Mrs. Wines and Lorimer 
missed one great thing, the sound of a girl’s 
rich, strident laugh. It did not ring out 
once. 


VII 


I T was not yet six o'clock of the next 
morning when Lowe, strolling lazily 
through the dewy grass, saw a great red 
rose come hurtling through the air toward 
him. He caught it in his hand, and looked 
in the direction of its flight, to catch sight 
of Clem Merrit’s bright head poised within 
the clambering arms of an old rose-tree 
which covered a summer-house. 

‘‘When did your alarm clock go off?" 
he asked her, coming close to the railing, 
and resting his arms upon it. 

“It was Reggie’s fist," said Clem. “We 
thought we 'd go walking, and then found 
the dew was so heavy that he ’s gone off to 
the stables to get us something to drive 
before breakfast. Won’t you come inside? 
There ’s a bully view of the sea, and a 
seat, such as it is." 

“I ’m satisfied," said Lowe. “I adore the 

1:90:] 


CLEM 


curve of your mouth when seen at just this 
angle, slightly above the level of the eye/’ 

“That ’s all right,” returned the girl, 
unmoved. “You ’d better go back to art 
and stick there. You may be a fair artist 
— they say so. But as a weather man, 
you ’re on the blink. What ’s the good of 
knocking around if you can’t sight dirty 
weather ahead ?” 

Lowe’s light lashes flickered heavily two 
or three times. 

“‘You mean — ?” he asked politely. 

“That, as a press agent. Jack, you ’re a 
shine.” 

His face held its impassive presentment, 
but far back in his eyes she beheld the light 
of understanding, and she leaped at it, to 
drag it forth. 

“That coon song stunt did n’t make a 
hit last night, did it?” she asked asser- 
tively. “What ’s the matter with your 
friends. Jack? Don’t they like a laugh?” 

“Did n’t they give you the laugh?” he 
asked. “Did n’t they give you the hand ?” 

“They gave me the laugh all right, I 


CLEM 


reckon,” Clem admitted calmly. ‘'And the 
hand for that matter; clap out! What ’s 
the matter with your friends, Jack? 
There ’s nothing wrong with the song. 
And I ’m not more than three laps behind 
the right way to sing it, am I ?” 

“You sing it perfectly,” Lowe uttered, 
with the finality of the recognized expert. 
“And everybody knows it — ” 

“No, they don^t,” said Clem, with the 
utmost impersonality. “There was n’t a 
woman there that knew it. You men, of 
course — ” 

“You are doing Dell Gresham a cruel in- 
justice,” Lowe interrupted gravely. “Dell 
is authority on stunts of all sorts, and Dell 
appreciated every fine point, I give you my 
word.” 

“ I ’m not in a position to call you there,” 
Clem returned. “I did n’t happen to see 
Mrs. Gresham — ” She stopped and her 
level brows came together in a somber 
frown. Then she looked squarely into 
Lowe’s eyes. 

“I see myself hitting the trail for town 


CLEM 

in about two days, Jack,” she said. ^This 
place has got on my nerves already. I 
don’t seem to fancy it.” 

*'Ah, now, don’t,” Lowe begged. 
‘‘When it ’s really a delightful place, and 
considering the fact that it ’s been so many 
months since we ’ve eaten at the same 
table-” 

“Were n’t they jolly luncheons!” Clem 
interrupted, with eyes brimming with 
laughter. “The lovely messes that little 
coon of Claude Denys’ could hand out! 
And to eat them in that studio of his, where 
everything had a taste of turpentine and 
oily rag — you had no business there, but 
you used to run in every morning! And 
then the places we ’d drop into in the even- 
ing, you and Denys and sometimes dad, 
and I. And then, always if dad was with 
us, we ’d go, after dinner, to some of those 
palaces, and watch dad play baccarat. Ah 
me, I love to see dad with a deck of cards 
in his hand, just before the deal. Do you 
remember him. Jack, red and bulky, with 
his tie just a little twisted, and his hat on 


CLEM 


the back of his head, and everybody watch- 
ing him, even the croupier ; and the highest 
players in all Paris just dropping over, one 
by one, to take a hand in the game ? Ah ! 
me, it ’s nerve I love” 

‘‘Where ’s ‘dad’ now?” Lowe asked, his 
eyes fastened with keen interest on the 
girl’s flushing, rippling face. 

“Getting ready to go down into South 
America and take a hand in some of the 
revolutions, so that he can get into a few 
gold-mines he ’s bought,” she replied care- 
lessly. “Equador ’s all tied up, and Colom- 
bia ’s worse. He ’s got the rover’s fever 
again— that ’s all that ’s the matter. He ’s 
just got home from this trip round the 
world with me — he can’t waste any more 
time sitting still, you know, or just having 
a good time. He ’s got to go work again. 
This is the biggest gamble he ’s gone into 
yet, for it takes in states and kings.” 

“And you?” queried Lowe. There was 
a certain note in his voice which made the 
girl turn on him quickly. 

“Don’t you go to blaming dad for leav- 

1:943 


t 


CLEM 


ing me behind him,” she said emphatically. 
‘‘You saw him down at the beach for those 
few days — you could see he was crazy to 
get out into God’s country again. He ’d 
take me — but I won’t go. He ’s been too 
good to trek about with me all this time. 
Anyway, I don’t want to go.” 

“But my God, girl, you ’re too— rich— 
to live alone!” Lowe protested. 

Clem sunk her chin into her hands and 
stared down at him. 

“Don’t let my money bother you any 
more than it does me— and you won’t say 
that sort of thing again,” she said slowly. 
“Say, Jack, how do you come to be hob- 
nobbing with this high-collared, stiff-cor- 
seted crowd? You would n’t have said 
that to me two years ago, in Paris.” 

Lowe laughed a little. “Paris is differ- 
ent,” he said lamely. “American girls can 
do anything they like — in Paris — and it ’s 
simply laid to Americanism !” 

“Well, I ’ve always done as I liked, 
you know,” Clem replied simply. “And 
you can lay it all, always, to me. 


CLEM 


What ’s the good of life, if you put chains 
on yourself? That 's why I think I 'ni 
going to trek out for town day after to- 
morrow/^ 

“Don’t!” Lowe said again. “It would 
be an injustice to — everybody, if you do. 
You don’t understand these people. Stay 
on, and learn them a little better. And if 
you are n’t interested in that, stay on to 
let them know you. They ’re all right ; an 
awfully good sort.” 

“Usually I can size up a string without 
being held by the hand,” Clem said, after a 
pause ; “but this yard of colts gets past me. 
That Grantham girl ’s got a sweet, fine 
nature. Jack! I ’ve got her all hung up on 
the line ! Who ’s the other girl, Virginia ?” 

She said it all without malice, and she 
laughed without malice. 

“Virginia ?” echoed Lowe. “She ’s a nice 
little thing; cousin of Lorimer’s and spe- 
cial pet of Mrs. Wines’s. Never mind the 
women. Let’s talk about Reggie. You 
may speak freely to me, Clem. I am a de- 
pendable, grandfatherly person.” 


CLEM 


‘‘I ’m not talking much about Reggie 
right now,” Clem said slowly; ‘‘but, so far, 
he seems to me the pick of this bunch.” 

“You put him over Lorimer!” protested 
Lowe. “And Gresham ! And me !” 

“That Lorimer is — what is he, Jack? 
He don’t play ragtime, anyway.” 

Lowe laughed. “Why, Lorimer can play 
ragtime,” he said lightly. “My dear Clem, 
Lorimer likes you — immensely. Believe 
me. You made your distinct hit with him, 
two weeks ago, when you gave us our 
palm-reading together— remember ? That 
was an inordinately clever stunt you put 
up that night. I should n’t have brought 
him to you personally, if I had n’t felt that 
I was doing an altruistic thing— presenting 
two distinctly worth-while people to each 
other — thereby cutting ice both ways. You 
seemed good enough pals down yonder at 
the shore; and here, last night — ” 

“Oh, he’s smooth,” rejoined Clem, 
somewhat absently. “Smooth as a piece of 
sash ribbon; the sort that does n’t get 
jolted easy ; that can get into a cab without 


CLEM 


having to go back after his hat; that can 
talk right along, the same sort of conversa- 
tion, after the supper bill’s hit him in the 
eye ! He ’s that sort, all right.” 

Lowe threw back his head and roared, 
but Clem stared down into his face soberly 
enough. 

‘‘He writes, does n’t he?” she added ab- 
ruptly. “I read a book of his that Reggie 
had. It was all about this lot of people 
— people like them. Somehow — oh, it was 
good stuff, but it did n’t seem to me it hit 
bottom — I laid it to the sort of people he ’d 
taken hold of to write up, the sort that 
would die if they had to live in deep water ; 
a goldfish crowd it was ! You know, Jack, 
I love an Indian, just because he ’s got to 
have all outdoors to live in and off of. 
Reggie and I talked that book of Drake 
Lorimer’s over and upside down, and from 
left to right and back again, Reggie stand- 
ing up for it— Reggie ’s only part Indian, 
you know — a great lot of him ’s white 
man ! He kept saying it was all right ; but 
he banked all his belief on what the critics 


CLEM 


said about the Lorimer book. Every time 
I M say, ‘But the man has n’t got the work- 
ing-man’s standpoint !’ Reggie would stand 
right up on both his feet and tell me that 
New York went wild over it, and old 
Drake had ’em all skinned ten miles !” She 
laughed a little. “Reggie’s a good friend, 
and I reckon I did n’t do Mr. Lorimer jus- 
tice, after all; for if he has n’t got the 
working-man’s jargon right, he certainly 
has this high-collared set put down in black 
and white. I can see that, with only six 
o’clock last night to start from. I ’m an 
Indian, you know. Jack. I ’ve got to have 
a lot of good, clean air to breathe, or I 
choke up and want to kill somebody.” 

“Well,” suggested Lowe, “vindicate the 
Indian, then, to the white man.” 

Clem retorted promptly. “Not for a 
minute ! After all, the Indian does n’t need 
vindication. He ’s got his own code, his 
own laws of life, and if he lives up to them, 
he ’s a good Indian, and has plenty of buf- 
falo in the hunting-grounds beyond. I 
suppose it ’s the same thing, only rarefied. 


CLEM 

with the white man. I don’t know. I Ve 
never lived with white men.” 

^ ’ She smiled down at last into his heavy, 
kindly face. 

“You ’re sort of different from the rest 
of ’em here, Jack. I daresay you don’t 
think that ’s a compliment; perhaps not. 
Is it living in that queer shack of yours, 
just outside of Paris, with that queer gang 
you had about you; where anything you^ 
did was right, and nothing counted for 
wrong — unless you lied to a woman, or 
played with a man with an ace up your 
sleeve ?” 

She bent down to him at last, and tapped 
his cheek lightly with her hand. 

“Talk!” she said. “Don’t moon at six 
o’clock in the morning!” 

Lowe smiled up at her queerly, his kind 
eyes fixed steadily on hers. “I ’m not un- 
shod, Clem,” he replied briefly. “If I walk 
here at all, it is of your mercy.” 

He paused for a moment, and the girl 
did not speak, but her questioning eyes 
were compelling. 

Cioo] 


CLEM 


‘‘I ’ve always said you were primitive,” 
he continued cheerfully. “Do you remem- 
ber that ‘Eve’ I showed you once, of 
Rodin’s, while Denys was painting you — 
the one thing you liked out of a mass of 
sculpture— and you did n’t know why? 
There was kinship between you — it always 
typified you to me. Your Indian code has 
served you well; you ’ve lived it uncon- 
sciously; you ’ve followed instinct, where 
the rest of us tentatively follow reason; 
and you ’ve walked gloriously all your 
years. But — ” 

“But — ” repeated the girl imperiously. 
Her eyes had never wavered from his. 

“But,” Lowe went on, slowly, yet with 
no manner of hesitation, “it ’s not in you 
to run away from any part of life, Clem. 
Good or bad, you ’ve never thrown down a 
hand yet. Whether you ’ve liked the cards 
or not, you ’ve played them— magnifi- 
cently — ” 

He saw that she was reading all things 
into his words, and he stopped, wondering 
that he had dared to say so much. She 


CLEM 


sat, with her chin in her hand, looking far 
away into the blue sky overhead. 

“He was the artist who said Eve’s little 
finger did n’t matter, after he found the 
workmen had broken the plaster finger off, 
and cast the bronze without knowing it — I 
remember you told me all about that. It 
was one of the finest, bravest things I ever 
heard.” She laid both her hands out along 
the railing and looked at them with a 
curious smile. 

Lowe followed her eyes and smiled 
broadly. “Well, did it?” he asked. “Be- 
side the breadth of the whole; its splendid 
lines, its great life and greater spirit? 
Was n’t criticism of that insignificant lack 
puerile and finicky ?” 

“Finicky !” she repeated. Her eyes dark- 
ened slightly, and her lips curved scorn- 
fully, but she looked at him at last with 
eyes that laughed beneath their flickering 
lids. 

“It ’s a good thing that I still have in- 
stinct — to tell me what a glorious liar you 
are. Jack,” she said. “Well, I ’m glad I ’ve 

1:1023 


CLEM 


met you down here, in this gang of your 
own sort, because you show up almost more 
of a man in it than you do out of it. Be- 
cause I like courage, and it takes it — to be 
different — here!” 

“You ’re not going away— really?” 
Lowe asked her quickly, caught by a cer- 
tain final note in her voice. 

“Oh, I don’t know,” Clem retorted care- 
lessly. “The Wessons — do you know the 
Wessons? — racing people? — want me 
down on their Long Island place for this 
month. They ’d be tickled to death if I 
wired them that I ’d be there to-morrow 
night for dinner!” 

She glanced at him from under heavy lids 
as he stood with folded arms and frowning 
brow, staring at the ground, and some- 
thing in his face made her add quickly : 

“Don’t you ever think I ’ll be throwing 
up the game, if I do ! I ’ve got a cold deal, 
and it ’s the best way to play my hand. 
Take my word for that!” She laughed 
rather loudly and with a touch of bitter- 
ness. Finally, she tapped his cheek again. 

D033 


CLEM 


''Your conversation this morning moves 
as easy as a cab horse on a sand track, 
she said. "You ’re the champion rapid fire 
conversationalist !” 

Lowe caught hold of her hand. "I know 
those Wessons,” he said jerkily, "and 
their crowd. They ’re not your level, 
Clem.” 

"I had a good time there two months 
ago,” the girl said lightly. "I met them on 
the boat, coming over. That ’s the way I 
meet most of the people I know — on the 
boat — coming over! I went right down 
with them, dad and I, and we had a good 
time. Nothing matters there, either, what- 
ever you do. Nobody cares. They ’re a 
good enough sort.” 

"They ’re not your level,” Lowe repeated 
stubbornly. The second repetition of the 
words seemed to goad her into swift 
speech. 

"I ’ve got no level — have n’t had for two 
years — not since I had that picture painted, 
and sat there morning after morning, hear- 
* ing you and Claude Denys talk and smoke 

1:^043 


CLEM 


by the hour. I went to him because he was 
the fashion, because my father wanted a 
portrait of me, and whenever you said 
portrait in Paris, somebody at your elbow, 
did n’t matter where you were, said 
‘Denys!’ Well, he took me, and painted 
me, and I sat there and heard him tell you 
about turning down this Lady So-and-so, 
and this Duchess of That, and this Mrs. 
Kerosene Somebody from Toledo, and all 
his reasons why. And I used to sit there, 
wondering why he M taken me — since I 
was n’t the duchess, and was n’t near the 
beauty that she was, and since he ’d turned 
down a woman whose husband was full as 
rich as my father. I never quite found 
out, and I stumbled through a lot of col- 
umns of rot that the art critics wrote of 
‘The Woman in Blue I’ Most of them said 
the work was superfine — what they said of 
Denys was all right, but I did n’t take to 
what they said of me, the things they said 
he ’d done with me. They seemed to talk 
me over considerable. You know what 
they said, the sort of woman a lot of them 

0051 


CLEM 


surmised I was. They did n’t agree, by a 
long ways, but none of it was very flatter- 
ing — it started me to thinking, and I ’ve 
never stopped. Though the thinking 
did n’t bother me a bit— till this summer. 
Since then — I ’ve got no level, Jack. You 
know it. You know it!” 

She had been speaking almost inaudibly, 
but with her last words her voice rose. She 
seemed at last to realize that Lowe still 
held her hand, and she tried to wrench it 
from him. But he held it persistently. 

“A big point of view is the rarest thing 
in the world, Clem,” he said serenely. 
“Don’t let motes hide it.” 

Her frown grew deeper, and her lips 
tightened as she looked into his steady, 
kindly eyes. Suddenly she dragged her 
hands free. 

“Reggie ’s calling,” she muttered. “He 
ought to have been here half an hour ago I” 

She sprang to her feet, without any 
other word of farewell, and walked swiftly 
over to where Reggie waited for her in his 
motor-car. Lowe continued to stare after 
0062 


CLEM 


her as she placed herself in the driver’s 
seat, displacing her young host without 
apology, and he gazed after the car until 
it lost itself in the curving roadway. Then 
he took up a slow stroll back to the house, 
with his hands clasped behind him, whist- 
ling a monotonous roundelay whose words 
relate to an animal fair where birds and 
beasts congregate, and deal especially with 
the vissicitudes befalling an elephant and 
a monkey. This particular melody always 
denoted a certain state of Lowe’s mind to 
intimate listeners, and he came up the steps 
of the house to find Dell Gresham waiting 
for him with hands uplifted. 

‘‘Heaven fend us !” she murmured 
piously, “that you start this glorious day 
— so! What is the trouble? And may I 
be permitted to help in any way, however 
mean and small ?” 

“Good old Dell 1” Lowe answered gladly. 
He broke off his roundelay abruptly, and 
pulled down the lady’s upheld hands. 
“Dell, I want you to do me a great favor ; 
something that it not only takes a woman 


CLEM 


to do, but a woman of great social expe- 
rience and instinctive tact — ” 

‘‘My lord!” murmured Mrs. Gresham, 
with a thankful courtesy. 

“And this is it,” Lowe went on, with the 
imperviousness of a raincoat. “For God’s 
sake, take hold of things! My word for 
it, there ’s gold lying loose in this merry 
little group, and Dell, you Ve got a touch- 
stone that ought to find it. And a woman’s 
friendship means so cursedly much more 
than a man’s can, sometimes. It can build 
up, sometimes, where a man’s can only 
destroy. Be a good fellow, old girl.” 

“I suppose I could n’t have helped — last 
night’s break, but I ’m perfectly certain I 
did n’t try,” Dell confessed, with a charm- 
ing air of penitence. 

“Make ’em all play up ! You ’ve got the 
faculty!” growled Lowe, as he followed 
her toward the breakfast-room. Mrs. 
Gresham turned on him quickly. 

“I can! I have!” she said. Her thought 
was growing in her brain. “I wonder,” 


CLEM 


she emitted at length, “what might be made 
of that girl, with the proper — ” 

Lowe ambled quickly to her side with 
his characteristic gait, a certain give at the 
ankles like that of a camel in its native 
sands, but possessed of a natural litheness 
which gave his awkwardness grace. He 
raised his hands devoutly. 

“Never!” he said in a tone which ad- 
mitted of no appeal. “This is no part of 
any uplift movement, Dell. I refuse to be 
a party to any such trashy game. When 
mortals condescend to mortals, then truly 
do the gods weep!” 

He paused as they reached the door, and 
held her back for a moment. “I shall 
dare,” he said whimsically, “to remind you 
of this great axiom of the studios: There 
are certain things which should never be 
finished; the freshness of first lines, the 
bloom of the sketch, should be left on 
them forever!” 

He watched her furtively as Clem and 
Reggie came in, almost an hour later, wind- 

C1093 


CLEM 


blown and laughing, from their swift 
morning flight, and his brow cleared as he 
noted the manner with which she drew the 
girl into a chair beside her, and began to 
talk to her with that rattling fluency which 
was Dell’s at all times. Clem rose to it, 
and, thanks to the ozone of the morning 
and of Dell Gresham’s vitality, her poise 
was unbroken by Mrs. Wines’s appearance, 
and the almost oppressive cordiality of that 
lady’s morning greetings. Lowe, watching 
Clem with an interest whose genuineness 
excused it, was uncertain as to how much, 
after all, she had really perceived of the 
situation into which they were all plunged, 
so thoroughly natural did she seem, and so 
thoroughly at her ease. 


Dion 


VIII 


T hat first unfortunate evening struck 
hardly the correct keynote of the week 
which followed, and yet it echoed through 
most of the days which came after; for 
Clem Merrit, that is to say. 

For she had caught the jangling note, 
even so early, and neither the assiduous 
courtesies of her hostess and her fellow- 
guests, nor the outright, downright devo- 
tion of her young host himself, could dull 
her ears or shut her clear-seeing eyes. She 
had taken Mrs. Wines’s invitation to The 
Pines for what it seemed: an honest, im- 
pulsive desire for her company; and she 
had accepted in that spirit precisely. She 
admired Reggie’s mother tremendously, 
with a species of infatuated adoration at 
which she herself laughed ; had so admired 
her through the first three weeks of her and 
Reggie Wines’s tropical friendship. She 


CLEM 


had never, in all her untamed, wandering 
life, come into personal contact with such 
a woman, and her delight at Mrs. Wines’s 
seemingly instantaneous response to her 
adoration was naive and bubbling. But 
even so early was her warm heart chilled. 
Mrs. Wines’s face, as Clem turned from 
the piano that night and looked upon it — 
Clem Merrit could not forget it. It held 
more than Mrs. Wines dreamed of her real 
feeling, and the girl, interpreting dimly 
and uncertainly, felt only bewilderment. 

As Farda Grantham had carefully 
pointed out, the party was small. Conse- 
quently it was impossible for Clem not to 
see much of them all. She listened in a 
sort of mental daze to the talk which went 
on about her, diamond-bright; diamond- 
hard, it seemed to her sometimes ; of peo- 
ple, events, arts and varied crafts, whose 
terminology was all but Greek to her, and 
yet whose drift she shrewdly caught. 
Sometimes she felt all but smothered in the 
webs of verbal finesse which this sort of 
people wound skilfully, delightfully, yet so 


CLEM 

futilely it seemed to her, about trivial hap- 
penings and worse than trivial emotions. 
No motive seemed simple any longer; 
double after double was presented to fleet- 
ing view, and was then buried beneath 
some light shaft of wit as an inconsequent 
thing, over which it was absurd to spend 
further time. In this estimate she did the 
table and veranda talk at The Pines some 
injustice. It was not superficial talk, because 
it touched hidden depths more often than 
the girl recognized; but it was subtle and 
polished, filled with brilliant hiatus so ob- 
vious to this little group of friends, that 
they honestly did not perceive its unintelli- 
gibility to an outsider. 

From it all, time and again, Reggie res- 
cued her. They rode and drove and 
walked, spending hours of each day apart 
from all the others, and no one said them 
nay. Both Lowe and Lorimer were atten- 
tive and interested, but for a day or two 
she saw but little of them. After that, in 
what manner Reggie hardly knew, his 
hours and hers alone together were swiftly 

^ 1:1133 


CLEM 


shortened. She played golf with Lowe, 
tennis with Lorimer, took advantage of 
Dell’s openly proffered friendship to ex- 
change vivid experiences, and she treated 
Reggie’s confused and growing misery 
with careless ease. For more and more, as 
the days went on, did the boy become 
sorely troubled. Something in their world 
had shifted ; they looked at each other with 
new eyes which did not seem their own. 
The deep, dark pine-groves seemed peopled 
to him, alone with her, as the crowded 
driveways at that crowded summer resort 
had not been. And yet she herself was so 
nearly the same that he could put a decisive 
finger on nothing definite — the point 
wherein lay the entire secret of his misery. 

This week, for a first week, had been as- 
tonishingly quiet, considering that several 
congenial neighboring families were es- 
tablished for the summer. Dell Gresham 
knew excellently well that her aunt had 
planned it so, but she woke the morning of 
the fourth day to find herself resenting it. 

‘T ’m going to be a promoter,” she said 

Oh-2 


CLEM 

enigmatically to Gresham, as they went 
down to breakfast ; and she refused to elu- 
cidate save by her actions, which, within 
the next few hours had contrived to be all 
but revolutionary. Both Lorimer and 
Lowe observed with ill-concealed interest 
Dell’s clever baiting of her aunt, which re- 
sulted in telephoned invitations to the 
Goodwins and the Effingers and the Hous- 
mans before noon, for an informal gather- 
ing that night. 

It was on the afternoon of that same day 
that Clem Merrit sat at ease on some side 
steps, alone, with her white skirts sweeping 
carelessly about her feet, and her broad- 
brimmed sailor hat tipped low over her 
eyes. She had been on the links for an 
hour, practising in solitude a bit of fine 
play which Lowe had demonstrated that 
morning, to her defeat. By and by the 
Greshams and Farda and Lowe came out, 
and Clem, seeing them approaching, ended 
her solitary play. 

“No, thanks,” she said to their invitation 
to go around. “I ’ve been tramping these 

n”53 


CLEM 


grounds all day. No,” she added to Lowe, 
who lingered by her. 

“Come,” he persisted. But she shook 
her head firmly, and retreated to the steps. 

Therefore was she sitting in solitude 
here. As she stared before her, the human 
figures faded from her view, and her eyes 
grew vacant as their sparkle died. She 
was thinking, thinking. 

Clem Merrit herself was elemental, 
singularly free from subtleties and quib- 
blings and ambiguities, but the taint of 
suspicion was wdrking in her now, irresist- 
ibly. These people, of what sort were 
they? The Greshams she honestly liked; 
in her terminology they were jolly and 
rode straight. Farda Grantham she smiled 
over with spontaneous amusement, for the 
girl's manner struck her as decidedly hu- 
morous. Lowe she pronounced jolly and 
straight also ; of a piece with the Greshams, 
and still a worthy member of that Parisian 
group into which she had stepped for a few 
brief weeks. Lorimer — she shook her head 
with an involuntary little shiver, and her 


CLEM 


eyes darkened with the stab of a memory — 
a memory of that salad course at that first 
dinner, and her intercepted glance at her 
hostess. It was hardly mortification that 
she felt now; it had been a far cry from 
mortification that she felt then. But that 
little incident stood out, suddenly alive with 
meaning, from all the hours crowded full 
of incidents, many of them similar. And 
shoulder to shoulder with that memory 
came the other one: of Mrs. Wines’s face 
later that same evening, after the singing 
of that topical song! 

Clem’s face darkened; for, if she had 
not yet shown the possession of that swift 
perceptiveness which is the foundation of 
culture, she had the instinct of the wild for 
insincerity; and the sight of Mrs. Wines’s 
proud, pained face had told her, that first 
night, that she had been deceived; that it 
was not because of a personal liking for 
her that Reggie’s mother had asked her 
here. Reggie— ah, Reggie was straight 
and loyal— yet! He was born honest and 
sincere, and, after her own peculiar fash- 

1:1173 


CLEM 


ion, that other girl was honest, that little 
cousin of Drake Lorimer’s, who lived with, 
and was loved by, Reggie’s mother — 

Clem turned at the sound of footsteps 
behind her, to see Virginia Garnet coming 
toward her with a sketching-board under 
her arm, and a box of water-colors. As 
she saw Clem, the younger girl hesitated 
perceptibly. Clem continued to tap her 
foot in rhythmic time against the step, 
while she looked reflectively upon this girl, 
pale and saintish, another type from this 
new world of types; the sort of girl that 
Mrs. Wines could love so tenderly — 

‘‘Hello !” Clem broke into her own 
thoughts so. “Going out yonder ?” 

Virginia hesitated still. “No, I played 
this morning. I was going to do a mono- 
chrome from the Point. The whole day is 
so heavenly blue.” 

There followed a pause, during which 
Clem continued to gaze reflectively, while 
Virginia battled with a strong distaste for 
obedience to the mandates of hospitality; 
but she spoke sweetly at last : 


CLEM 


^ Won’t you come out with me? Every- 
body seems asleep, or busy.” 

Clem sat silent for a moment; then she 
swung leisurely to her feet. ‘‘Yes, I ’ll 
come,” she said. “Not because every- 
body ’s asleep or busy — because I can go to 
sleep myself, or get busy. I ’ll just come.” 

Virginia felt somewhat puzzled; her 
kindliness had seemed to her so sincere 
that she was not aware of the slight pa- 
tronage lurking in it, and it never occurred 
to her that Clem’s words were a good- 
natured flinging back of the unasked-for 
commodity. Silence fell between them as 
they started down the road, a silence of 
which Virginia was uncomfortably con- 
scious. Clem was entirely oblivious to it, 
for little memories were springing up in 
her mind this afternoon, and distracting it. 
Yet suddenly she laughed. 

“Oh, nothing,” she said lightly, in reply 
to Virginia’s surprised inquiry. “You just 
have a queer collection back yonder under 
that roof ; a queer lot, that ’s all.” 

Virginia’s face expressed doubt and dis- 




CLEM 


taste. ‘We all like each other very much,” 
she said, with a bit of dignity, “and we 
understand each other.” 

“All of you?” asked Clem humorously. 
“Some of you are n’t so easy to under- 
stand, you know.” 

The younger girl flushed slightly under 
the mild fling, but she volunteered no an- 
swer, and in silence chose the spot for their 
lounging and her sketching. Clem flung 
herself down on the sand, and stretched 
herself along it as gracefully and lithely as 
a cat. 

“How old are you ?” she asked Virginia 
abruptly. 

Virginia glanced up in surprise. “I ’m 
twenty years old,” she answered briefly. 

For a few moments Clem watched the 
swift strokes of the brush in silence. Then 
she spoke with immense energy: 

“What have you done all your life?” 

Again Virginia looked up in almost cold 
amazement, but Clem brushed such con- 
ventional emotions ruthlessly aside. 

“I mean it,” she said brusquely. “I 


CLEM 


was n’t brought up with girls— I don’t 
know anything about any sort of girls, let 
alone your sort. I want to know what 
you ’ve been doing all your life, all these 
twenty years ; how you ’ve lived.” 

‘‘That ’s a very hard question to answer 
off-hand,” Virginia replied, almost child- 
ishly. “I have n’t done anything but what 
all girls do : go to school, and study music 
and art, and travel. I studied art in Paris 
one year— last year— because it took me 
that long over there to find out that my 
drawing is very bad. It ’s queer I had to 
go over to Paris, and stay there that long 
to learn that one thing.” 

Clem commented dryly: “I don’t know 
about that. I daresay a lot of us have to 
go a long way to learn lots of things. I ’m 
twenty-six,” she added, with a tardy rec- 
ognition of the confidence which had just 
been granted her. 

“But,” she continued energetically, 
“after all, what have you done? Where 
have you lived? What — ” She stopped. 

Virginia raised her eyes to her ques- 


CLEM 


tioner. ‘‘I don’t know what you want to 
find out about me,” she said directly. And 
that directness, even with its implied re- 
serve, appealed strongly to Clem Merrit. 

‘‘Look here,” she said impulsively. “I 
want to know how a girl of your sort does 
live; what she does, how she fills in her 
time — I was n’t brought up your way, you 
know. I never have learned much about 
women, and I ’m free to say that till lately 
most of them seemed pretty cheap affairs. 
Perhaps that ’s because I ’ve never met just 
your lovely, fluffy sort before. And then, 
of course, women don’t care for me, hardly 
ever; and I don’t care for that, either.” 

Virginia began to answer slowly, reluc- 
tantly. She did not know this girl, and did 
not want to know her. Yet Drake had 
asked her to be cordial, and she cared much 
for her cousin Drake. And Reggie had 
commanded her to be decent, in a manner 
which compelled obedience. Therefore she 
began to speak earnestly, dutifully, but 
with some aimlessness. 

“My father is in Japan now,” she said. 


CLEM 


‘‘He is interested in collecting weapons; 
that is why he is there. When I did not 
want to go back to Paris this winter to the 
school there, which was what my father 
expected me to do, he was very much wor- 
ried to know what to do with me, and Mrs. 
Wines asked him to let me stay with her. 
Reggie is in school, you know, and she is 
very lonely. It has all been just school and 
French-conversation classes, and dancing- 
class, and art school and Paris.’’ She 
stopped breathlessly. 

“And now— here!” uttered Clem elo- 
quently. She leaned further back, and 
watched the girl as she bent studiously over 
her work. Suddenly she laid one strong 
finger on the drawing. 

“What did you call this ?” she asked. 

“This is just a sketch,” Virginia replied 
uncertainly. 

“But you called it something,” Clem in- 
sisted lazily. “You said you were going to 
do something from the Point.” 

“A monochrome,” said Virginia. She 
glanced up, and what she saw in Clem Mer- 

1:1233 


CLEM 


rit’s face made her add in sweet pedantry, 
“A sketch in one color.” 

Another silence fell. Clem lay far back, 
watching intently the face near her. She 
had never hungered after anything in all 
her life, material or spiritual. She had 
played without protest whatever hand had 
been dealt her. What the gods had given 
she had taken. What they had withheld 
she had not begged for. What they might 
snatch away she had let go with a laugh 
— until this week. This new hunger which 
gnawed within her was indefinite, inchoate, 
purely rudimentary. But she had caught 
glimpses of other planes of thought and 
action, and this afternoon, as she watched 
and listened, there came upon her the first 
stir of an embryonic ideal, and it sickened 
her as it quickened. She could not speak, 
so great was her mental daze ; she only lay 
there, staring with wide eyes which she 
dared not close. 

Virginia began to speak again, restlessly, 
with determined civility: 

‘T am studying art just because I love it. 


CLEM 


My mother was a sister of my cousin 
Drake’s father — there is where I get my 
love for it, they say. Drake’s father was 
a man of very great talent. He wanted 
Drake to be an artist. But Reggie’s father 
saw that Drake would be only merely good 
at that, and he helped my uncle to give up 
his particular ambition for Drake. Dr. 
Wines was a very great man. It seems 
queer that Reggie is so different from both 
his mother and his father. He and Drake 
are great chums. He is going into Wall 
Street, he says, and Drake laughs at him. 
Reggie and I are just the same age.” 

She paused, to begin again with the 
same effect of resolute entertaining. 

“Farda Grantham and I went abroad to- 
gether. She studied music. We stayed at 
Madame Vallprmes’s school. The girls 
there used to amuse themselves by teaching 
the American girls the French ‘r’. Some- 
times I can say it by itself now, but never 
in a word. Dell laughs at me because I 
say I am going to study art always, and so 
does Drake, and so does Reggie. Dell and 

[125 3 


CLEM 


her husband are great travelers. They 
lived in Japan for a year. They came 
home through India. Dell says they are 
going back there and be Brahmins.” 

‘‘Mrs. Gresham is a jolly little woman,” 
said Clem briefly. Her heart warmed sud- 
denly with memories of long morning 
hours and lazy afternoons when she and 
Dell Gresham had talked with common in- 
terest and understanding. 

Virginia replied with civil effort: “She 
is very nice indeed. She is very unconven- 
tional, though. She does so many things 
that other women don’t do, perhaps 
would n’t dare to do. Yet in her they are 
perfectly right. Before she was married 
she was the same way. But no one ever 
cared.” 

“Why?” demanded Clem quickly. She 
turned slightly, and stared straight at the 
simple child before her. 

“Well,” hesitated Virginia, “because she 
is Dell Gresham for one thing, I suppose. 
And then, whatever she does, does n’t mat- 
ter because, no matter how absurd she is, 


CLEM 


all the time every one knows that she knows 
every convention to the letter, and simply 
does n’t care about it. And nobody else 
can care, you see.” 

Clem bit her under lip cruelly. She 
raised herself swiftly on one elbow and 
looked keenly at the girl. Then she laid 
herself down again, satisfied that nothing 
personal could have been meant. That 
salad course was in her mind again. Mrs. 
Gresham, it appeared, might have eaten 
hers with a spoon, and it would have mat- 
tered not at all, merely because she hap- 
pened to know — and others knew she knew 
— which fork ! She laughed shortly, as she 
flung her arms above her head. 

‘‘Just school and French classes, and 
dancing-classes, and art-schools, and 
travel, and Paris! And people! This 
sort !— 

“I Ve had school— some. It came a lit- 
tle late — I was almost as old as you are 
now when I really had your sort of school, 
but I Ve had it. I hate French, but I know 
German, learned to speak it when I was a 

1:1273 


CLEM 

child — a pal of my father’s used to talk it 
to me all his spare time. I ’ve had French 
as far as that goes — and Paris. I ’ve had 
dancing-classes, not that I ever needed 
them much. I never took drawing; but 
I ’ve had music — ” 

She felt the slow, dark flush creeping 
over her face. She was thinking again of 
that long, long room, and the songs she 
sang, and she was bitterly ashamed. And 
she did not in the least know why. For 
even now she told herself angrily that the 
coon song was merely broadly funny, no 
more. She was not capable of going be- 
yond broad fun. But everything about it 
had been wrong. It hurt her terribly to 
remember Mrs. Wines’s face, white and 
frozen. Even Jack Lowe, with all his 
comforting attempts to make her forget it, 
had only succeeded in impressing it on her 
that only the men appreciated it, cared for 
it at all. From them alone had come her 
meed of applause. She had never cared 
for the applause or approval of women 
before. But here, she felt the lack sorely. 


CLEM 


They seemed of different races, these 
women here, and she herself. And why? 
She was trying to get hold of the tangle 
this afternoon. At last she went on : 

‘‘But people — this sort — ” And there 
she stopped again. 

Virginia hesitated a moment. Then she 
spoke clearly: 

“I wonder, sometimes, if I Ve had too 
much of this sort. I wonder if there are n’t 
other sorts as good— better !” 

She dropped her brushes and pushed her 
drawing-board away, and stared absently 
out over the water. Her eyes darkened, 
and her sweet lips curved almost bitterly. 
Clem looked at her wonderingly ; the 
words seemed like heresy to her who had 
lived all her life beyond the pale; who had 
not even dreamed that such people as 
these were in the world; and who, seeing 
them now for the first time, was filled with 
the almost certain conviction that this sort 
was the sort most to be desired, even 
though she, by force of what had gone be- 
fore, were forever cut off from it. 


CLEM 


f 


^‘You don’t really think that,” she as- 
serted at length. 

‘‘Ah, don’t I!” Virginia breathed. She 
caught her breath sharply. “At least,” she 
added, after a bit, “I ought to know other 
sorts, if only to be able to judge them bet- 
ter.” 

Clem glanced furtively at the girl’s 
strained face. She was shrewd enough to 
perceive that Virginia was thinking of her 
not at all. 

“Oh, in this world it does n’t pay to 
judge,” Clem said, with a rather grim 
laugh. “The worst ones of us have some 
good in us, though it may not come out 
until our last hour. I ’ve seen some men 
live like jackals, and die like — gentle- 
men.” 

She was watching the girl’s face rather 
sharply. It was a revelation to her that 
Virginia Garnet could be so vitally moved 
by inner feelings. The younger girl spoke 
swiftly: 

“I knew it— I always knew it — you 
mean that there is always good in men.” 

Dso] 


CLEM 


Clem answered soberly: “I don’t think 
of any man, living or dead, that I wouldn’t 
say that of.” And something impelled her 
to add, “It takes death though, to bring the 
good out of some men. And nobody wants 
to live with a jackal, even if he is able to 
die like a gentleman.” 

“You ’ve known a great many men,” 
Virginia asserted. “Do you think a man 
can love — two women?” 

Clem laughed. “Can !” she repeated elo- 
quently. “They do; three — four — and on 
up.” 

“I mean at one time,” Virginia added. 

“Perhaps not four at a time,” Clem re- 
turned frivolously, “but two easily — they 
do it constantly — love two women.” 

“I mean really love,” Virginia insisted 
gently. She was looking far into Clem’s 
eyes, and Clem, rather startled by the in- 
tensity of the gaze, checked herself, with a 
slight frown. 

“Oh, well, I don’t,” she said. “That ’s 
too rare to talk about.” 

A few moments of silence fell between 

DsO 


CLEM 


them. Clem’s hands were clasped lazily 
behind her head, and she started slightly 
when Virginia’s voice broke the pause. 

‘‘I knew a man once,” she said quickly 
— then her face flushed fiercely, and her 
white throat throbbed. 

“I knew a man once,” she repeated in a 
changed voice, “who told me — that he 
loved a woman — with a sort of evil fas- 
cination — and loved — a girl too, better, far 
better, than he could love this woman — 
Do you think that that ’s true?” 

Clem stared steadily at the girl from 
under half-closed lids. It was all very 
transparent, and very young; but for the 
first time in her memory, Clem Merrit 
shrank from her knowledge of life. She 
could not remember the time when she had 
illusions, but she knew that this girl beside 
her was arrayed in them, despite this one 
evident sad rent; and the perception made 
her hesitate. 

“Why, it could be true enough,” she said 
slowly. “But why did he run around tell- 
ing it — to anybody? Why did n’t he go 


CLEM 


off under the stars and fight it out, face to 
face with himself?” 

‘‘He should n’t have told?” Virginia 
queried vaguely. “Not any one? Not 
even the girl — to explain to her why he had 
to leave her — ” 

“My God!” murmured Clem Merrit, 
very slowly. She drew herself to a sitting 
posture, and fixed a level gaze upon the 
waters. “I ’d hate to tell you what I think 
about that,” she threw over her shoulder 
at Virginia. 

“But I wish you would,” the girl per- 
sisted. “It ’s — interesting. I wish you 
would tell me.” 

“How old was that man?” Clem asked 
curtly. “Thirty-five! And an up-to-date 
man, eh! Well, he was n’t that big a fool. 
And if he was n’t a fool, a man like that, 
he ’s a rascal.” 

Virginia spoke with a sharp catch in her 
voice. “That is what my cousin Drake 
said. Exactly what he thought.” 

“Well, your cousin Drake ’s an experi- 
enced sort,” said Clem dryly. “He ought 

1^332 


CLEM 


to know.” She hesitated a moment^ and 
then she asked : “That other man — he is n’t 
among your sort?” 

“No,” said Virginia dully. 

Clem leaned back again against her 
rock, and watched the girl as she gathered 
up her drawing-materials restlessly. It had 
all been an unwitting confession of a girl’s 
first, foolish love, and Clem’s heart warmed 
to this childish thing quite as fervently as 
if Virginia had voluntarily confided in her. 
It was a new experience for Clem, to hear 
a woman’s confidence, and she cherished it 
avidly. This girl, shielded like a flower 
from life, until she knew nothing of life — 
Clem wondered longingly what a girlhood 
like this girl’s must be. 

“Just school and travel, and classes, and 
people — this sort. I ’ve had some of the 
school, and the travel; but people — ” 
There she stopped again. 

“You ’ve had people,” Virginia said 
longingly. “The sort to make you certain 
of yourself; but my whole life has gone 

t:i343 


CLEM 

for nothing but to make me altogether un- 
certain.” 

Clem laughed a little grimly. ‘‘It ’s af- 
fected you that way too,” she said mu- 
singly. “And yet your people seem certain 
enough. They Ve got no doubts. And 
I Ve not had many in my life. It ’s easy 
to see clear when you see only one side.” 

Then she drew herself up. She knew 
nothing of the literature of the confes- 
sional, but she had the instinct of that in- 
comparable guider of souls who gave but 
two minutes to confession on the plea that 
it is too dangerous a relaxation. Behind 
them they heard the shrill whistle of an 
afternoon train. 

“Shall we go back?” Virginia asked, the 
spell that was on her broken now by Clem’s 
stirring. “Dinner is early to-night, on ac- 
count of the Goodwins, and the Effingers, 
and the rest, coming over for the evening.” 

When they reached the house, after a 
rather silent walk, they found Reggie 
there, just arrived from town, whither he 

1:1353 


CLEM 

had gone on some pressing call that morn- 
ing. 

got all your traps and Dell’s, Vee,” he 
said. ''I also dropped into that roof gar- 
den, and got the swing of that infernal 
ragtime you were trying to drill into me a 
while back. See !” 

On the top step he executed a marvel- 
ously intricate clog, glancing beyond Vir- 
ginia’s smiling eyes to Clem. She was 
laughing too, but a look lurked within her 
eyes which he had never seen there before, 
and he was fairly conversant, too, with 
those bits of blue. He sprang down 
immedig.tely and came toward her. Per- 
haps he had never looked so boyish, and so 
altogether lovable. 

‘‘Dell ’s calling you, Vee,” he said 
shamelessly. “I hear her. Anyway, this 
cart ’s not built for three. And Miss Mer- 
rit needs a bit of fast driving to tone her 
up.” 

He came close to her as she stood on the 
graveled pathway. Just now Reggie was 
essentially a young and healthy animal, 

ni363 


CLEM 


with a healthy scorn of mental subtleties 
and psychological riddles. Yet, from the 
very facts of his birth and environment, he 
had within him perceptions and feelings 
not animal, nor material, and these intangi- 
ble things took hold of him and gripped 
him as he looked into Clem’s pale face. 
Virginia went up the steps and disappeared 
within the house; Reggie noted the fact 
over his broad shoulder. Then he looked 
at Clem with lovable mastery. 

*‘Get in,” he said briefly. But she did 
not move, merely looked at him steadily, 
with dumb contemplation and un worded 
questioning. He advanced a step nearer. 

‘‘What ’s up?” he asked. “Has any 
one—” 

He stopped because he could not go on. 
It was a question hard to finish; it con- 
ceded too much of possibility. 

Clem’s eyes turned suddenly away, dark- 
ening somberly. For the first time in her 
life, perhaps, she caught the absolute pitch 
of a ringing chord, and knew it. In that 
second all the questionings of all the days 

D373 


CLEM 


just past found their swift, relentless an- 
swer, and that embryonic thing-, formless 
and nameless, which had stirred first that 
afternoon, moved fiercely within her soul 
once again. 

‘‘Clem I” the boy said harshly. 

She faced him deliberately, with her 
shoulders squared, and her head flung 
high. Then she let him put her into the 
cart. In another moment they were off, 
leaving behind them a small, subsiding 
whirlwind of dust and pebbles. And the 
echo, on the summer breeze, of her ringing 
laugh. 




IX 


M rs. wines sat wearily this night at 
the foot of her table. The next day 
would see the departure of her guests, 
most of them, and she was fiercely glad. 
This week had been one which she could 
never forget, and which she would have 
wiped out of all memory. 

About her silent self the table talk rose 
to ever increasing crests. It mounted 
higher and higher, and it seemed that it 
would never fall; yet it had about it that 
instability which marks a mounting wave 
whose sure collapse must come, and she 
waited wearily for the end, with every 
nerve tightening under the strain. 

Across from her, on Reggie’s right 
hand, sat Clem Merrit. He had placed her 
there to-night with some ostentation; had 
gone to the length of exchanging a place 
or two to accomplish it. On Clem’s other 

1:139] 


CLEM 


side sat Lorimer, and on Reggie’s left were 
Dell and Lowe. It was among these five 
that the talk was surging to such heights 
of gaiety. 

Mrs. Wines watched the girl to-night 
with eyes which were filled with fear as 
well as weariness. The fear was a new 
one, and had stolen on her unawares, to 
haunt her like a great shadow, bringing 
with it a conviction of guilt, a certainty 
that she had tampered insultingly with 
hidden things. Her fear was no longer 
the mother’s fierce dread for her boy, but 
sprang from the shameful knowledge that 
she had put out a wanton hand and had 
bruised a soul. 

For the girl had seen — there was no 
doubt of that; she had seen, partially at 
least, the difference. She was not crushed 
and broken ; she was bolder and gayer and 
more bewilderingly assertive to-night than 
ever; her voice was higher and her laugh 
more loud. Yet for three days past there 
had been a certain gleam in her eyes, every 
sight of which had shocked Reggie’s 

Cho] 


CLEM 


mother into panic ; which made her feel the 
cringing craven whenever she looked into 
Clem Merrit’s steady, brilliant eyes. Par- 
tially, at least, the girl had seen. 

To Mrs. Wines the proof of this had 
been plain, in Clem’s suddenly evident 
comradeship with Lowe and Lorimer; in 
her resolute pushing of Reggie to one side; 
in his restless hoverings on the outer edge 
of these new groupings, and his patent dis- 
satisfaction thereat. For the three of 
them the week had proved a bitter one, and 
to-night she felt more deeply for the girl 
than for the boy. She remembered grate- 
fully now Lorimer’s cold bit of comfort 
on the day of her discovery; that Reggie 
would recover; that a boy must have his 
experiences, his fancied loves. Reggie’s 
welfare troubled her to-night not at all; 
the love-interest thereof had long since 
vanished from all phases of the case. In 
this thing she no longer thought of hearts. 
It had become a matter of soul, a matter of 
responsibility for the spirit she had deliber- 
ately and sorely wounded. For the girl 

ChO 


CLEM 

had seen. She was no adventuress. She 
was without culture or refinement, if one 
chose so pitilessly to analyze her, but she 
had perception enough to see the things 
which Mrs. Wines had determined to make 
her see. 

Lorimer had helped throughout the 
week. And Lowe. Mrs. Wines discovered 
herself at the outset to be glad indeed that 
Lowe had known the girl before. It made 
his rescuing of situations less patent than 
Lorimer’s sometimes seemed to her; al- 
though nothing could have been more deli- 
cate than Lorimer’s silken manoeuvers. 
After all, Lowe took but little part in any- 
thing connected with the girl’s position in 
the household, and he was not in the confi- 
dence of his hostess by so much as the 
breath of a whisper. Yet she felt, with the 
guilty certainty of discovery which a crim- 
inal feels, that Lowe understood perfectly 
the situation, and resolutely held aloof, 
definitely refused to be entangled in so 
questionable a proceeding as this had been. 
But Lorimer had been openly devoted to 

i: 142:1 


CLEM 


the girl, more and more genuinely inter- 
ested as the days passed. 

“She is a most interesting type,” he said 
once to his hostess, and in a certain way 
Mrs. Wines resented it; it sounded heart- 
lessly scrutinizing, cruelly perceptive. Yet 
to anything of the sort in Lorimer the girl 
had been oblivious, unless it might be that 
in the last few days there had come a subtle 
change in her manner to him, a certain 
armed neutrality lying within her eyes as 
they rested on Lorimer’s high-bred face. 
Yes, within the last few days there had 
certainly come a change. 

She sighed wearily. The swirl of talk 
and laughter oppressed her beyond meas^ 
ure. How she longed for the night to be 
ended — for the morning to dawn. Then 
Farda was to go to the Effingers for over 
Sunday; Lowe was to go into town for a 
few days to meet some London friends just 
arrived ; Clem Merrit^ was to leave for all 
time; of that Mrs. Wines was convinced. 
For Clem Merrit had perceived. By the 
next evening The Pines would be practi- 

1:1433 


CLEM 


cally cleared of visitors; Dell and Eaton 
and Lorimer did not count as visitors. 
Even Lorimer might be gone, if he decided 
to accompany Lowe. 

Shreds of talk assailed her ears now and 
then, and from time to time she listened 
listlessly, smiling at the proper moments, 
but silent. When last she listened defi- 
nitely, they had been recounting poker 
stories — the two best ones, by common 
consent, were Clem Merrit’s. Now, as she 
came out of her painful reverie, horses and 
racing were the themes. She listened with 
set lips to the verbal proofs of Clem Mer- 
rit’s familiarity with the Derby winners at 
home and abroad; to the names of her fa- 
vorite bookmakers; to all the argot of the 
race-tracks. Never had such talk been 
heard at her table, and she shrank from its 
sound as from physical blows. She turned 
indignant eyes on Lorimer once, when he 
seemed not content to let sleeping dogs lie, 
but insisted on deeper details. She glanced 
at Reggie too, and the boy met her eyes 

1:1443 


CLEM 


squarely. He, too, was pale, but she saw 
again that straightening under fire which 
she had seen that night of her first meeting 
with the girl, when she had been mad, mad, 
mad! Unless the girl had truly seen, 
would come to her help, it had been of no 
use, none of it! 

It was with animated and vivid detail 
that Clem was answering Lorimer’s ques- 
tions about various times of trial and tri- 
umph on the turf, and Mrs. Gresham’s 
eyes lighted up with her own interest. She 
herself was desperately fond of horses, 
and she held to the topic after Lorimer sat 
back, silent and reflective. He was think- 
ing of the real fineness of these rough 
men’s stories, roughly told as they were. 
The girl’s tale always had its point, no 
matter how rough-hewn the handle might 
be. Here was a woman who had attained, 
through some processes, to a man’s stand- 
point of honor and conduct of life, and a 
man’s standpoint on a few other trifles as 
light as air to the average woman. He 


CLEM 


wondered, calmly, how much of that which 
was really higher and finer had been lost in 
such attaining. 

“Have you a stable? Really?’’ Dell 
asked eagerly. 

“I wish you ’d come down into Virginia 
and see it some time,” Clem answered hos- 
pitably. “It ’s the one spot on earth that ’s 
really home to me; the one place I think 
I ’d want to strike for if I was dying, don’t 
you know! I have a fine two-year-old 
who ’s going to be good for next year. 
My jockey? Jimmy Hinch. He can ride 
at ninety-five pounds when he has to; has 
good hands ; rates a horse well in front, or 
behind a pace-maker. He can ride a wait- 
ing race too, and put up a Garrison finish. 
He ’s safe and careful, and a quick boy 
away from the post, and he can have a leg 
up on Fleetwood — ” 

At last the high-crested wave slipped 
spinelessly down to dead level. Clem’s 
eyes had focused themselves squarely on 
Mrs. Wines as she began to speak, and as 
her voice died in her throat, she turned 

ni463 


CLEM 


slowly away from her hostess’s proud, 
pained face. Once again, and forever, it 
seemed to her, she saw herself mirrored in 
that woman’s eyes ; herself as she was, held 
up against this background of a life into 
which she had never before entered, and of 
which she had never dreamed. 

As she sat, her hand gripping fiercely 
the thread-like stem of her wine-glass, 
Lorimer leaned forward, speaking in- 
stantly, his words seemingly mere inter- 
ruption ; yet the girl’s lip curled with pride 
and anger as she listened : 

‘‘I saw Jimmy Hinch last June, Miss 
Merrit. During the Saratoga meet he 
landed two 20-to-i shots, two lo-to-i 
shots, two 8 -to-i shots, beside shorter- 
priced horses. He ,’s one of the few good 
colored boys in the saddle since the days of 
J. Winkfield. Have you heard that the 
Derwin stables have all but got him? I 
understand, however, that he ’s a free 
lance, still.” 

The girl picked up her wine-glass and 
drained it. She contrived to pull her scat- 

1^472 


CLEM 


tered self together, and her voice sounded 
almost natural as she replied. 

“I know the major domo of the Derwin 
stables. He ’s crazy over Hinch. He 
won’t get him, either. I may not, but he 
won’t. You ’re good to hand me what you 
think is a straight tip, though.” 

Her eyes blazed hotly into Lorimer’s, 
and stirred him for a moment from his 
wonted calm. There is something about 
a roused woman which few men care to 
provoke. He was keen enough to perceive 
that she saw straight through his manifest 
rescuing of the situation, and was far from 
grateful for his trouble, and he was doubly 
annoyed at her perception and at his trans- 
parency. He was not used to failing so 
signally in finesse. 

But at this moment, they all turned, by 
common impulse, toward Reggie. 

“Here ’s to Fleetwood, topped by 
Hinch !” the young host said. His words 
came rapidly, tumbling over each other. 
“Fleetwood ’s worth even a Hinch. If he 
keeps up his present form, and works out 


CLEM 


the Derby time, he must go to the post, 
and we ’ll back him there !” 

It was a boyish rally to a dust-trailed 
flag, and in token of its bravery, the all- 
concealing talk rose again with a gallant 
surge. Lowe, who had been sitting silent 
and half frowning, bent at last toward 
Far da Grantham with a sunny smile. 

“Brace up, Farda,” he urged encourag- 
ingly. “After all, what do you care ? Dell 
bets, you know, bets viciously. And why 
not, if she wants to. Or anybody wants 
to!” 

“That sort of thing, its endurability, de- 
pends altogether on breeding,” said Miss 
Grantham icily. “Our ever fruitful con- 
tention, Jack; blood versus — ” 

Mrs. Wines’s face whitened even more, 
as she caught the stray words of Farda’s 
unreasoning speech. She gave the rising 
signal to the women; but Reggie was the 
first of all on his feet, and his chait was 
pushed back with a commendable decision. 

“We shan’t stay behind, to-night, moth- 
er,” he said. He turned openly to Clem 


CLEM 


Merrit, and walked with her down the 
wide hall. At the door of the music-room 
they held a short, sharp parley, in which 
the girl won. 

“Everybody ’s turning in here. I don’t 
want to go out there to-night,” she said 
repeatedly, as he tried to induce her to 
leave the house and its people behind them. 
She cut the discussion short at last by sit- 
ting down within a window recess, and 
the boy took up a defiant stand near her^ 
with his arms folded, and a heavy frown 
darkening his brow. Every one was talk- 
ing again, eagerly, with a keen sense of 
relief. The dinner hour had been rather 
dreadful. At last there came a unanimous 
call for Dell. 

“Songs!” that small lady cried. She 
jumped down from a window where she 
had been perching, and ran over to the 
piano, looking quite Mephistophelian in her 
scarlet crepe. She stood beside the piano, 
and played standing. She began to sing, 
a gay, English music-hall mixture of coster 
and coon. She cake-walked as she played, 

Ciso;] 


CLEM 


after the fashion of many nations. The 
entire bit of business was indescribably sug- 
gestive and utterly laughable, and for that, 
as well as because of the dinner and its 
nerve-racking incidents, every one roared 
and called imperiously for repetition. 

As Dell reached the last stanza for the 
second time, Clem, sitting half hidden in 
her curtained recess, with her blue eyes 
burning coldly, saw Mrs. Wines enter and 
stand, unnoticed, in the doorway. Clem 
watched her with bitterly curious eyes. As 
Dell cut a last delicious caper, and crashed 
out one resounding final chord, Mrs. Wines 
moved quickly across to her, and laid a 
caressing hand upon her niece’s arm, smil- 
ing the while into the sparkling face. 

‘‘Be our monkey to-night, Dell,” she 
said. “Wear the bells for a full hour, and 
claim what reward you will.” 

Clem Merrit hurled herself upward to 
her feet. Had she followed instinct, she 
must have screamed aloud, and torn at 
something, be it flesh or stone. The call 
to battle sounded in her ears. Its voice 

[ISO 


CLEM 


impelled her. She had held herself under 
rigid restraint for many days, and because 
of that had suffered many things. She 
was leaving the next day — thank God! — 
but before she left this house of suffering 
and humiliation she must cry aloud her 
defense — 

She choked back a strangling gasp of 
shame and resentment, and then she stepped 
quickly, silently, through the long window 
near her, out to the empty veranda. Once 
there, beneath the cold, pale stars, she flung 
herself in weak abandon against the chill 
stone of one of its great pillars, her bare 
shoulders writhing and twisting in her 
torment of spirit. She felt like a leaf in 
the grasp of her Fate. 

But suddenly, with an inward horror, 
she caught herself up. Some one was 
coming toward her — a man! If it were 
Reggie — now — he must hear her out, must 
know — 

But it was not Reggie— it was Drake 
Lorimer. 

She faced him desperately, her body 

1:1523 


CLEM 


drawn to its full height, her hands clasped 
behind her, her bare shoulders still resting 
against the cold stone pillar, her blue dress 
turned to vivid silver where the high lights 
fell. She rallied every force within her, 
and with her first uttered word she gave 
way without further attempt at resistance. 
After all, even granted the strength to 
play it out, where lay the use of such a 
sorry game! This man knew it all, had 
known it from the first. She had, at first, 
all but taken him into her confidence — fool, 
fool! — because she knew from Reggie how 
great a part he bore in Reggie’s life. He 
knew it all ; had been the one to present her 
to that pitiless mother ; knew why she had 
been bidden here ; had watched and waited, 
as Reggie’s mother had watched and 
waited; had taken it upon himself, time 
and again, to spare her, to save her 
humiliations — her high spirit sickened; the 
play had played itself badly out; and in 
this moment even her great pride went 
down. 

As she fled past him with her brave 

nissH 


CLEM 


greeting strangling in her throat, Lorimer 
looked after her; looked after her till the 
last thread of shining blue was swallowed 
up in the bend of the wide staircase. Then 
he drew a long breath. 

‘T am beginning to wonder,’’ he said to 
himself slowly, “what sort we are, all of 
us, held up against her ! At all events she ’s 
played a gallant — Oh, it ’s damnably 
hard on her, curse it !” 

And Lorimer, too, leaned up against the 
pillar, and stared into the velvety black- 
ness of the night. 




X 


I T was afternoon of the next day. Clem 
Merrit was to leave, in company with 
Lowe, on the six o’clock train. The others 
were to go after dinner. She came down 
to luncheon after a morning spent in her 
room, a withdrawal which lost her any 
farewell speech with Miss Grantham, who 
was driven over to the Efhnger place 
shortly before noon by Lowe, who did not 
return for luncheon. After that meal was 
ended Clem went out to some side steps, 
where Reggie was awaiting her, evidently 
by appointment. The young man looked 
worried and pale and altogether unhappy. 
They went across the lawn together, and 
disappeared in the shadow of the dolorous 
pines. Two hours later she came back 
alone, and went to her room, sending down 
brief word that she wished to leave an hour 
earlier, on the five o’clock train. 

Hiss] 


CLEM 


At four o’clock she came down-stairs, 
dressed for her journey to town. She 
glanced at the great clock; then her eyes 
met those of her hostess, who for all of 
the past hour had been pacing the length 
of the hall. As the two women looked on 
each other, Mrs. Wines came to a dead 
stop at the foot of the staircase. As Clem 
stood on the lower step, she addressed the 
older woman coolly. 

“If you ’ll send an order around, Mrs. 
Wines, for the station cart to be ready, I’ 11 
go right down to the station, as soon as 
I ’ve had a little talk with you ; but I want 
to see you first. Can we be alone, in here ?” 

Mrs. Wines made as if to offer faint 
protest of some sort, then she changed her 
mind, and gave the necessary orders; and 
then she led the way silently to the library, 
toward which Clem had turned. When 
the door closed behind them, the girl mo- 
tioned the older woman to a chair, and 
then, disdaining one for herself, stood be- 
fore her, straight and tall and beautiful as 
a young goddess. 

1:1563 


CLEM 


‘‘I wanted to see you before I left/' she 
began in a voice wonderfully controlled, 
‘‘because I want to tell you some things 
I Ve told — your son — already. I want to 
tell you what he did n’t want you to know 
at first, that we were engaged when I came 
here. He said he was too young, and still 
in college, and that was straight enough, 
but I know now he was afraid of how 
you ’d take it. I give you my word of 
honor I never thought of that— of your 
right to know — till I came here; since then 
I ’ve not thought of much else. It ’s been 
a hard week, the hardest I ’ve ever lived 
through. In one sense it ’s not your fault, 
and then again, in another, it is. 

“I ’d like to tell you the way I ’ve been 
brought up. I wonder if it would make 
you understand, or if you ’d only turn away 
the more. My father came from the East 
here somewhere, but he had to cut the 
place, and he went out West. My mother” 
—the girl moistened her dry lips— “my 
mother was an actress, and not a very good 
one. My father really brought me up. 

CIS?] 


CLEM 


Sometimes she M get crazy for the life 
again, and she ’d go back to the stage, and 
I M be left with him. She did n’t care for 
either of us, except when her shows got 
stranded, and she needed some place to 
come to. My father took me everywhere 
with him. I ’ve been on the stage, too, 
when I was a child, in children’s parts, a 
lot of them. When I was fifteen my 
mother finally — ran away. Since then 
she died. I never saw her after she left 
my father for good. Six years ago my 
father struck it rich, and since then I ’ve 
had everything I wanted — my father ’s 
meant for me to have the best kind of a 
time, and finally, with all the money, to 
make a good match. I suppose he ’d rather 
see me married to some good man than to 
hit another gold-mine. And I ’ve met a lot 
of men, but there ’s been a small few of 
them I ’d ever think of marrying. 

“I told all this, and more, to your son — 
when he proposed to me — everything. I ’ve 
said no man should ever marry me with- 
out knowing the whole truth about some 
things. He did n’t mind; but I give you 

Ds83 ■ 


CLEM 


my word of honor I never thought once of 
how you ’d take it, or of his, or my, duty 
to you. 

“You see, I Ve lived all my life with 
men, from the time I was born. Bad men, 
and mad men, with just one law among 
them — might; but it had a whole lot of 
right after all — after you measure the civ- 
ilized sort against them. I don’t like women, 
and they don’t like me. I wish they did. I 
never cared about it till this week, and then, 
all of a sudden, I got to hating all those men 
I ’d ever known — the way they ’d crowded 
round me. They ’ve always done it, but 
somehow, it all at once did n’t seem nice. 
I ’ve looked at everything from a man’s 
standpoint all my life. It ’s hard for me 
to get a woman’s view. That first eve- 
ning, when I met you, no woman had ever 
laid her hand on mine in just that way be- 
fore and I honestly thought for a little 
while that perhaps one woman really liked 
me. 

“It ’s been a hard week, Mrs. Wines, for 
it ’s opened my eyes, and I ’ve seen what 
I ’ve missed and what I ’ll have to miss. 

1:1593 


CLEM 

I know why you did it, and I want to tell 
you you Ve succeeded. You ’ve shown me 
the gulf. I ’m not going to throw myself 
into it, but no more am I going to try to 
step across. It ’s been hard to stay it out. 
It 's been full of hard knocks— that first 
night here, when I sang that song, and 
saw your face — and that was n’t near as 
hard a thing as last night, when another 
woman stood up to the piano and sang a 
song that went ahead of mine by some de- 
grees. I dare say that little girl is right. 
When people know the right thing they 
don’t have to do it. Yes, it ’s been a hard 
week. But I don’t blame you. If I ’d 
such a son, and he was so near to ruining 
his whole life, I ’d have been brave enough 
to do the same thing. 

‘‘I want to tell you this, too — I ’ve told 
your son already. It ’s my father ’s had 
the ambition, and all because he ’s so proud 
of me. As far as I ’m concerned I 
would n’t marry a crown prince unless I 
cared for him, and I ’d tell no man my 
whole story unless I — 

1:1603 


CLEM 

‘‘I saw your son this afternoon and, had 
it all out with him. He blames himself 
terribly for feeling the difference as he 
has — you and me together — and he 
would n’t believe me when I told him that 
his manner toward me has been my one 
comfort this week — and it has. He ’s 
stood out against a good deal — for you 
mean a lot to him — and so do I; but it 
could n’t be helped. He could n’t help it, 
and you could n’t, and I could n’t. It ’s 
been hard for us all. You ’ve flicked me 
on the raw, time and again, but it ’s been 
mostly involuntary; you did n’t mean to. 

“I had to throw him over myself. He ’s 
so mad with cut pride that he ’d marry me 
to-night — and he blames you some. He 
says the test among your sort of people 
was unfair to me. Well, it was ; but it was 
fair to him, and to you; and I want you 
and him to know that I don’t blame either 
one of you. He ’ll see it straight in a little 
while, and be glad you did what was hard 
and right.” 

She stopped at last. Mrs. Wines raised 

“ 1:1613 


CLEM 


her bent head and looked up at the girl. 
She half rose, but Clem pressed her gently 
back. 

‘‘Don’t !” she said briefly. “I know 
you ’re sorry it all had to happen, but it 
had to, and words don’t help it. If you 
want to do anything for me at all, you ’ll 
sit still, and let me go away without a 
word.” 

She picked up her hand-bag and turned 
toward the door. Then she paused for a 
brief moment, and came back. 

“There ’s one thing I ’d like to have you 
say to your son,” she added. “It ’s not 
the heart hurt that ’s the worst in this for 
either him or me. I ’ve never had much 
of a chance myself, but I know a lady 
when I see one, and I know a gentleman; 
and I want you to tell him that he ’s one, 
clear through. That ’s what ’s cutting 
him up more than losing me. I want you 
to tell him that.” 

And then she went over to the door and 
opened it, and closed it gently behind her. 


1:1623 


XI 


W HEN Mrs. Wines had realized that 
^ Clem Merrit was leaving on a train 
other than the one arranged for, and that 
Lowe might not be back to attend her, she 
sent a message to Lorimer at the same time 
that she sent orders for the station cart to 
be in readiness ; and it was in obedience to 
that request that Lorimer was standing, 
waiting, beside the cart. He was only too 
keenly aware of the progress of events ; he 
had known when Reggie and Clem disap- 
peared earlier in the afternoon; he had 
seen her come back alone; he knew by the 
wording of the servant’s message that she 
had been closeted with Mrs. Wines for 
half an hour. He drew out his watch, and 
discovered that her choice of trains left 
her but little margin. He knew that she 
had intended to leave on a later, fast train, 
and he felt certain that this blind choice of 
an accommodation horror augured Reg- 

1:163:] 

A. 


CLEM 


gie’s ignorance of her intended departure 
on it, augured at least that it was incum- 
bent on him, Lorimer, to see her fairly 
started on her journey. 

He looked up finally to see her standing 
before him. She had come quickly from 
the entrance door, alone. She walked to- 
ward him with her old, free walk; but 
her eyes were black, and her face was 
pallid. It was merely an accident that 
no one of the other guests happened to 
be near to bid her farewell. No one 
knew, of course, that she was leaving 
on the earlier, slower train, except Mrs. 
Wines and he himself, and Reggie, possi- 
bly. Reginald the Rescued! Yet Lorimer 
felt a sudden wrath against them all, be- 
cause of the loneliness, the seeming un- 
friendliness of her departure. 

She came unhesitatingly toward him, 
and held out a steady hand. 

‘^Good-by,’’ she said. She looked 
straight into his eyes, and as she looked at 
him, a faint shadow of a smile caught her 
lips and curled them. Lorimer winced in- 

ni643 


CLEM 


wardly; Lowe’s almost forgotten words 
flashed into his mind : ‘‘She might have 
been the primeval Woman, walking un- 
trodden sands, pressing the springing 
earth when the world was young!” Some- 
how, under the influence of that flickering 
smile, which seemed to reveal a basic judg- 
ment, he felt ultra-civilized — the world- 
weary offspring of a superficial age — he 
felt veneered. 

He held out his hand to assist her, but 
she stepped lightly in without noticing it, 
without touching it, save in that fleeting 
conventionality of farewell. 

“The station, Matthews,” she said. 

“The station, Matthews,” Lorimer ut- 
tered, at precisely the same moment, and 
sprang in beside her. She flung up her 
head haughtily at the act, and stared at 
him; then her lips curled again, not pur- 
posely, but involuntarily, and she looked 
steadily away from him. 

They drove in silence until they reached 
the high-road, and then Lorimer spoke 
again to the man. “Take it at good speed, 

ties 3 


CLEM 

Matthews,” he said. Then he ^turned to 
the girl. 

^‘The five o’clock train is all but due; 
you would be fortunate to miss it. Some 
one should have insisted on your waiting 
for the six o’clock express. You reach 
town practically as soon, and often sooner. 
This earlier one is a horrible example of 
the local accommodation.” 

“It does n’t matter at all,” said the girl 
briefly. Once again she was facing him 
steadily, her eyes full on him, with that 
faint smile still hovering about her mouth. 
As he uttered once again something con- 
ventional and, as he himself realized, ut- 
terly banal, she flung up her hand scorn- 
fully, in bitter protest. 

“The scenery!” she echoed. The hot 
anger in her eyes deepened, she paused a 
second; then she turned away from him 
once again, and stared straight ahead. 

“You know all about this thing,” she 
began swiftly; “and since you ’ve taken it 
on yourself, unasked and unneeded, to see 
me to the station, fairly off the grounds 
0662 


CLEM 


I Ve poached on, we ’ll not ignore it. I ’ve 
just settled with Mrs. Wines back yonder, 
and I ’m ready to settle once for all with 
you. In the first place, whatever there was 
between Reggie and me is ended. In the 
second place, it stays ended, and that ’s 
all.” 

‘‘I rejoice that you force speech between 
us,” Lorimer replied. “Because I hardly 
see how I may have a peaceful hour again, 
if I may not tell you that every one con- 
cerned in this business, save perhaps Reg- 
gie, owes you abject apology — ” 

“Save only Reggie !” amended Clem 
Merrit proudly. 

“Save only Reggie!” repeated ■ Lorimer. 
“I myself have seemed to you responsible 
for a good deal — ” 

“You have made yourself responsible 
for a good deal,” said the girl flatly. 
“That ’s the reason I ’m talking to you 
right now. A good many people got inter- 
ested in the thing, more than enough to 
show me that I was a mistake. Between 
you two, you and Mrs. Wines, you ’ve 


CLEM 


cuddled and coddled Reggie till it a 
wonder he ’s what he is. She ’s a woman ; 
but you ’re a man — you ought to know 
better. Well, the lid ’s off now. He ’s 
cut the strings that tied him to you and his 
mother, and — I cut the strings that tied 
him to me. He belongs to himself now, 
and it ’s high time.” 

‘‘I am thoroughly convinced that an all 
but unforgivable mistake was made,” con- 
fessed Lorimer. ‘‘I ’m not talking about 
Reggie now ; I ’m talking about you. You 
make me feel Pharasaical — when I think 
of you!” 

“Don’t think of me!” she retorted in- 
stantly. “And don’t be at all disturbed in 
your even living if by any chance you do. 
Because, honestly, I think I ’ve got a 
clearer, cleaner conscience than any of you 
people can have, except Reggie.” 

She hesitated a moment, and then she 
turned full on Lorimer. “He ’s dreadfully 
cut up over this, just now,” she said husk- 
ily. “He ’s such a beautiful, straight- 
souled boy. Help him out in it — tell him 


CLEM 


anything you like about me, that I ’m a 
wretched flirt, that I ’m an adventuress — 
anything! It does n’t matter what you 
say about me, because — you see, he thinks 
it ’s me — losing me — that he feels so 
broken up over. It ’s not that — I know — 
near so much as the fear that he has n’t 
acted straight toward me. Once, when he 
hesitated, after I ’d made him see the dif- 
ference he would n’t own up to, and his lie 
did n’t come quick enough, I snatched at 
that — it was the only thing he ’d left me 
to snatch at — I could n’t lie to him myself, 
tell him I was an adventuress, and so he ’s 
crazy with fury at himself, thinking he ’s 
no gentleman, when he ’s the finest, 
straightest, cleanest — I could n’t lie about 
myself to him that way, it seemed too 
awful. I hope he ’ll see it clear and 
straight, and be sensible. You can lie to 
him if it will do any good— he ’ll come out 
all right. You ’d better get him away 
from that woman, though— his mother. 
She ’s good and high and angelic, but 
she ’s no sort of medicine for him now.” 


CLEM 


‘‘What sort do you take me for !” asked 
Lorimer harshly. “How could I possibly 
lie about you! After this talk, after all 
you Ve said, I can’t trust myself to say a 
word about you to him, for if I did — 
you ’ve made me feel as if we are, all of 
us, — snobs I” 

Clem Merrit sat straight. “Well, do 
you know,” she remarked quietly, “I be- 
lieve in my soul that ’s what you all are — 
snobs! It ’s not a pretty word, and you 
have everything to say for yourselves, 
from your standpoint ; but from my stand- 
point, just now, you seem like a lot of 
well-bred, unconscious — snobs! Your lit- 
tle world, your little circle, your little lives 
— it ’s all that matters to you! And when 
any outside shock comes — like me! — you 
draw up like sensitive plants, touch-me- 
nots ! It ’s been a hellish week, for I began 
to get your idea the first night I came, and 
you ’ve been one of the chief ones to make 
me see it more and more, ever since — with 
your interruptions and explainings and 
filling in pauses and all that granny busi- 

1 ^ 70-2 


CLEM 


ness. And after eight days of it, of what 
that good woman back yonder put on me 
deliberately and made me carry, I ’m leav- 
ing you, feeling that, if to be your sort I ’d 
have to be exactly like you, self-compla- 
cent and pitiless to every one outside my 
little one-two-three crowd, I ’m glad, glad, 
glad, that I ’m Clem Merrit, what I am : a 
woman who ^s seen enough of life of all 
sorts, to know for all eternity that no one 
side of life can afford to sit back in a smug 
little corner and say, ‘I ’m It.’ I ’m not 
blaming her — I Ve told her that — she did 
it for her boy; and she made me see what 
I ’d never dreamed before, that I, or any 
woman like me, must n’t ever come be- 
tween her and him. But you — after all, 
you don’t really believe you are a snob, or 
that you have a touch of it. You ’re sim- 
ply uncomfortable because I ’m a woman 
in an uncomfortable position where you’ve 
helped put me, and it ’s made you uncom- 
fortable because you ’ve seen me writhe 
once or twice. This is naked talk — it 
does n’t matter, because we shan’t meet 


CLEM 

again, ever. We Ve just making that 
train. Thank you. Good-by!” 

In a strangely helpless silence Lorimer 
stood, watching the dun local creep slowly 
away. The coaches were dusty and grimy, 
and the sight of them heaped reproaches 
on him. No one, not even he, had insisted 
on that later, more comfortable train. No 
one had suggested, objected, when she 
took the matter into her own hands, and 
chose the first train, regardless of its sort, 
which would bear her away from the 
scene of carnage after the battle was 
ended. 

He stepped back into the cart with ting- 
ling nerves. The echo of her voice still 
lashed him. There was something in- 
tensely primitive and direct about the girl’s 
point of view, something which shamed 
conventions, and made most of them seem 
nothing but shams. The test had been 
unfair. Shamefully unfair! They had 
arrogantly set up their standard that she 
might be measured thereby, and by it 

ni72 3 


CLEM 


stand or fall. And then, to-day, she had 
planted firm her own measuring rod, and 
had placed them against it, not as indi- 
viduals, by so much had she been kinder 
than they, but as a circle, and had pro- 
nounced them wanting in things vital. 
They were hardly snobs — Lorimer winced 
under her use of that word— but the es- 
sence of snobbery lay in their manner of 
judgment of this girl whose white face 
had just slipped by him from a window 
of the creeping train, this girl who, in the 
midst of her shame, and from the rem- 
nants of her cut pride, found pride enough 
to be glad she was not one of them. 

By and by he remembered her plea for 
Reggie. That must be attended to imme- 
diately — the boy’s going away. It should 
be where he wished, with whomever he 
wished. Home was not the place for him 
just now; even his mother must realize 
that. The whole affair had been a bitter 
mistake. 

As they turned into the drive leading to 


CLEM 


the house, Lorimer, buried in unquiet 
thought, started at the sound of a cry on 
his left. He looked up quickly to see a 
man, one of the under-servants, waving 
his hat wildly, and pointing toward the 
house, dimly visible through the trees. 

'‘What does he say, Matthews?” Lori- 
mer asked quickly. 

"That we ’re wanted, sir, at the house, 
as quick as may be,” the man replied, and 
touched up his horses to swifter pace. 

After a bit Lorimer spoke again, an odd 
premonition thrilling him. 

"He was waiting for us, Matthews?” 

"It looked that way, sir.” 

"He said nothing else?” 

"Nothing else, sir.” 

Lorimer leaned forward, watching in- 
tently. He did not know what he feared, 
nor for whom his fear gripped him so 
heavily. As they dashed up the last hun- 
dred feet of the driveway, rounding the 
last curve in a hail of pebbles, he saw Dell 
Gresham standing, bare-headed, on the 
steps, waiting for him. As he sprang 

iml 


CLEM 


down and hurried to her, he thought invol- 
untarily of a day, six years before, when 
all the long day through, her first and only 
child lay dying, and her face wore then 
this same pallid look of waiting helplessly 
for some oncoming terror. 


1^751 


XII 


LEM sank into one of the hot, plush- 



covered seats of the local accommoda- 
tion, and closed her eyes. They stung 
fiercely, and in another second she opened 
them wide, and bent forward impulsively, 
to peer through the dusty window for one 
last glimpse of the station cart, already 
turning on its trip back to The Pines, to 
the Greshams, to that still, cool, flower-like 
girl, to Reggie- 

Then it was that her color flamed hot. 
Her brain was clear and keen, and of this 
fleeting madness of hers she saw the ab- 
surdity as she had never seen it before; 
saw it with ultimate vividness as her last 
sight of Lorimer was lost — Lorimer, set- 
tling back against the cushioned seat, light- 
ing the cigarette which was to prove no 
panacea to his strained nerves. 

Against him, too, her color flamed hot. 


1:1763 


CLEM 


He had played a large part in her disillu- 
sionment of this past week, a part larger 
than he knew ; and at the last he had proved 
himself to be the bitterest disappointment of 
them all. To Mrs. Wines she had been able 
to do full justice, and Reggie, in spite of all 
things, had proved himself to be what she 
had always known him to be from the be- 
ginning of their brief friendship, a clean, 
honorable, beautiful lover. That stormy 
scene of theirs, far away from meddlers, 
in the sweet-scented, dusky woods — she 
was no novice at handling men, and dur- 
ing the last four or five years, she had 
worn, for a brief space at a time, more 
than one engagement ring ; but because this 
experience had been so vital to her and to 
him, it had almost slipped her control. She 
had said, and had said truly, that his deep- 
est grief was the knowledge that in some 
dark way he did not understand he had 
failed her; and she honored him more for 
this deepest grief of his, than for his gen- 
uine madness over his losing of her. Her 
life of the past few luxurious years had 

1:1773 


CLEM 


been spent almost altogether with the mon- 
ied floating riff-rafif of cities and resorts. 
She had known many men, but she had been 
thrown with few men who ever pretended 
to idealize her. Of all her lovers Reggie 
was the first to place her in a shrine; and 
because of his worship of the soul which he 
ascribed to her, and not entirely of the 
beauty at whose effect on so many she had 
too often sneered, her deepest instincts had 
leaped to do him homage. 

Yes, of them all, Reggie had not failed 
her; and she loved him for it, tenderly, 
gratefully, after a manner of which a 
mother, even his mother, need not be re- 
sentful. Jack Lowe, indeed, had been her 
staunch friend, that she knew; but he, after 
all, seemed slightly different from the 
others in his view of things. Nonsensical 
things did not matter to Jack, as they mat- 
tered to others — 

This man, Drake Lorimer — she per- 
ceived now, as she looked on him for the 
last time, that she had always been waiting 
for him to do something, be something, 

ni783 


CLEM 


prove himself something, and in this end- 
ing to it all, he had failed, not her, but 
himself. It was all vague and unwordable, 
but somehow he had failed. 

From the first he appealed to her, as a 
perfect type of the gentleman born and 
bred; from that first night that she had 
seen him, in that gipsy tent of hers, in 
which she, or her father for her, had vol- 
unteered to take Dell Gresham’s place as 
palm reader for charity. She did not take 
books seriously as authentic excerpts from 
life, and she did not accept as undiluted 
realism Ouida’s descriptions of the Eng- • 
lish aristocracy. But it was only through 
books that she knew his seeming type, and 
it had somehow appealed to her from the 
beginning as heroic. 

She knew him before their meeting for 
Reggie’s best friend; she had been pre- 
pared to like him for Reggie’s sake, and 
had liked him instantly for his own. The 
first evening at The Pines she felt herself 
drawn to him with open liking. Looking 
back, she saw now how he had, even then, 

ni793 


CLEM 


begun his shielding of her in many ways, 
ways which she did not perceive then, be- 
cause of her frightful obtuseness, her sav- 
age ignorance. She had been at loss many 
times ; she knew it, and admitted it frankly. 
Hotel life she knew to the last detail of its 
gilded fripperies. Such home life as this 
was, she had never lived before, and there 
was a difference. Yes, Lorimer had 
shielded her from the first; of late his 
deliberate care, though it grew no. more 
heavily shaded, had seemed more obtrusive 
— last night for instance, when he took up 
the race-track patois so glibly! — she 
writhed in misery in the dusty seat. 

And this afternoon — surely there had 
been a chance for him somewhere, during 
that last half hour; and he had not risen to 
it ; had seemed to be seeking honestly some 
way, and had found it not ; had played the 
conventional gentleman with all that finesse 
of which he was past master, and had fallen 
far, far short of the heights he might have 
reached. She had abased herself before 
Reggie’s mother, but she reared her head 
1 1802 


CLEM 


proudly before Reggie’s friend, and both 
attitudes were flawlessly sincere. She had 
told Reggie’s mother, humbly, that she 
was not of their class, and she had told 
Lorimer, with hot pride beating in her 
voice, that, if to be one of them she must 
sacrifice that breadth of outlook over life 
which was hers, she would never make the 
sacrifice. Reggie had that breadth of 
view — ignorance, these people called it — 
he was not spoiled yet. But by and by, and 
very shortly too, he would begin to see, 
or rather cease from seeing, as this man 
Lorimer looked and saw not. 

She pressed her hot cheek to the cooler 
pane. She was still flushing, in spasms of 
bitter shame. And her deepest shame 
seemed to lie, not in her own great lack of 
that environment into which this boy lover 
of hers had been born, as in Drake Lori- 
mer’s lack of that great humanity whereby 
he might have seen more clearly the wrong 
which had been done her. She had voiced 
it proudly to Mrs. Wines : ‘‘It was n’t fair 
to me, but it was fair to you and to him !” 


CLEM 


Lorimer had felt dimly the unfairness to 
her of this cruel test. If he had but seen it 
more clearly, as Reggie saw it; if he had 
but voiced it, as Reggie voiced it, this bit- 
ter pain could not have gripped her so 
keenly. Somehow he had failed himself, 
had proved himself incompetent, where he 
should have been capable, had just missed 
mastery of that bitter hour. 

A memory of Lowe’s half earnest, half 
laughing advice drifted through her mind; 
advice which he had thrown lightly at her 
the morning after her arrival. “It would 
be an injustice to everybody if you go now. 
Stay on and learn these people a little bet- 
ter, and stay on to let them know you!” 

A bitter smile twisted her lips. She 
might have done every one an injustice by 
going, but in staying she, herself, had suf- 
fered the sorriest injustice at her own 
hands ; she, herself, had digged the pit. 

In this retrospection of hers she did not 
spare herself in any way, and because of 
her pitilessness to herself, she lost for a 
moment the larger view which would have 


CLEM 


shown her that she had left behind her 
humiliation and distress, as great in the 
aggregate, as the burden thereof which she 
was bearing. She could not realize, how- 
ever, how fundamental had been her de- 
struction of convention and tradition and 
the various undisturbed cobwebs of social 
customs and thought. It was as if some 
cosmic genie had brokenly suddenly in upon 
a little anthropocentric group, and had 
shown it precisely its rating in the progress 
of this planet to ultimate extinction. But 
this she could not know. 

The trip to town was a continuous suc- 
cession of exasperating delays, and the 
summer day slowly darkened into twilight. 
Once, half way in, they were sidetracked 
half an hour, that some special train might 
have right of way. In any other state of 
mind she would have chafed at the delays ; 
now she did not notice them. She was 
wondering where she should go for re- 
fuge, after she reached town. There was 
always their hotel suite, hers and her fa- 
ther’s; if she were sure her father were out 

i: 183:1 


CLEM 


of town, she would go there. But she 
could not endure the thought of a possible 
meeting to-night with any one she had 
ever seen before. She thought of other 
hotels. She thought vaguely of a last 
alternative, a swift departure for any point 
whose distance away made a night’s jour- 
ney. . She would call up their hotel in any 
case; but if her father should be there, if 
she were to be compelled to meet him, to 
face his interested, eager queries about her 
country visit — she felt a fever which was 
almost madness seize her. She must have 
solitude at any price — at any price. Her 
world was in chaos, and its dust was chok- 
ing her. 

When the train, delayed, belated, came 
to a stop at last under the station shed, she 
realized that she was weakened and worn 
with her fierce gusts of shame and anger. 
There was no porter near her, and she 
slowly gathered up her belongings. Sta- 
tion after staticfn had added its quota to the 
mass of people who were traveling city- 
ward to-night, and she waited until most 

1:^84] 


CLEM 

of her fellow travelers were out of the car 
before she stepped upon its platform. Al- 
most the last one, she followed the sub- 
urbanites as they scattered along the floor 
and through the gates. Her eyes were 
black with weariness, and widened with 
her mental daze. She went stolidly after 
the crowd, looking neither to the right nor 
to the left. Her natural shock, therefore, 
was very great, when, feeling her arm laid 
hold of gently, she turned and looked into 
Lowe’s face. 

She stared at him almost stupidly. It 
was he, definitely, whom she had planned 
to avoid meeting, by taking that five o’clock 
train. And here he stood, patiently wait- 
ing for her! She became aware then that 
it was Lowe who had been leaning against 
the gate directly ahead of her, busied with 
scanning closely the faces of the train’s 
passengers. She had seen him without rec- 
ognizing him at all ; his heavy head, with 
its heavy features usually subtly lighted 
by their own peculiar, jolly gleam of good 
humor. But to-night there was no jollity, 

Dssi 


CLEM 


no irradiating gleam. As she continued to 
look into his eyes, her face paled sicken- 
ingly, and a great fear gripped her. 

‘‘What is it?’’ she whispered, “tell me, 
quick !” 

“I came down on the six o’clock train, 
to catch you here, if possible,” said Lowe 
swiftly. “I ’ve been waiting fifteen min- 
utes for you. You must come back, Clem, 
on that train yonder. Reggie is badly 
wounded. There must be an operation, 
and the outcome is doubtful. He sent me 
for you. It was a pistol shot; a bad ab- 
dominal wound. You will come, Clem — 
Clem, you must ! The doctors are here al- 
ready, and the nurses, on the train. We 
must get back — quickly.” 


Ii862 


XIII 


S HE could not have been persuaded be- 
fore that he could be so gentle, so con- 
siderate. She found his arm was strung 
with steel as she, in her great shock, 
swayed against him. He led her aside 
from the straggling crowd, and into a re- 
tired corner of the waiting-room. There, 
as if she were a child, he put her into a 
seat, and then stood over her, his hand 
placed firmly on her shoulders, that thick, 
powerful hand with its thick short fingers, 
which could grip his brushes so master- 
fully. 

“That ’s right,” he said after a moment. 
His voice held a note of courageous cheer. 
“That ’s right. Brace up, for the sake of 
them all, back yonder, waiting for you, 
Clem, as you were never waited for and 
needed yet.” 

“Reggie shot!” she whispered, for sole 

D873 


CLEM 

reply. ''You ’re not keeping things back 
—he ’s not dead— yet?” 

"He was living ten minutes ago,” Lowe 
said gently. "I got them by telephone as 
soon as my train got in. His one cry is for 
you — when he ’s conscious.” 

"It ’s very serious?” The girl’s voice 
was shaking. 

"Poor youngster, yes. This is what we 
know : Virginia heard the cry first, and ran 
to his room. He seems to have been busy 
with guns and pistols, cleaning them — 
there were several of his favorites scat- 
tered round— he managed to say that he 
was just starting on a hunting trip — ” 

"Oh, my God!’' she groaned. She closed 
her eyes, and then opened them wide, star- 
ing dizzily into Lowe’s steady, com- 
prehending ones. Before she could speak, 
he gripped her shoulder harder. 

"Don’t call up horrors !” he commanded 
sternly. "Listen: We got help from the 
Goodwin’s— they have a young cub of a 
doctor staying there this week — he was 
over and hard at work before I left. Reg- 

Ciss;] 


CLEM 


gie was, conscious when Vee found him, 
and at intervals afterward, they told me 
over the telephone. He says over and 
over, that it was an accident pure and 
simple, another case of not knowing the 
bullet was there.” 

He paused again, too long, for the 
silence suddenly wrecked Clem’s nerves, 
and she began to shiver violently, in the 
warmth of the summer evening. Her face 
dropped into her hands. 

‘‘Oh, that mother of his!” she sobbed 
brokenly. “How she hates me — how she 
hates me — hates me!” 

For a moment Lowe stood helpless, look- 
ing down at her bent head. He was re- 
calling Reggie’s desperate gaspings as he 
lay on his bed, still conscious, giving his 
imperious orders : 

“Every man ’s been the Gaderene swine 
in this business, but she ’s got to come back. 
She ’s got to come back. There ’s a lot 
she don’t understand. Drake ’s no good— 
she sees through him — you ’re the one. 
Jack. Bring her back, to-night.” 

1:1893 


CLEM 


And Lowe had set out on his journey, 
with an indignation which every moment 
fanned to deeper flaming. The girl had 
not met with fair play — and would not; 
there lay the pity of the thing. Before he 
left he had been forced to listen to the 
half-frenzied mother’s protests against the 
bringing back into her home of the girl 
whom she firmly believed had sent her boy 
to his death. He had left the house in- 
deed, in the face of those protests, and 
under orders from the young physician, 
who hushed the mother at last with his 
hard mandate that no slightest chance for 
recovery must be let slip. 

He glanced at his watch. The girl 
might have ten minutes more before the 
express left, in which to get hold of 
herself. She was still shivering convul- 
sively. His hand tightened again on her 
shoulder. 

“The boy is a dead game shot,” he said 
quietly. “And this wound is a hideous 
abdominal affair. You and I can read from 
that. If he had gone off his head so far, 

l^9o'2 


CLEM 

he M have made better work of it, because 
he would know how. The thing in itself 
spells accident. I ought to tell you that his 
mother reads it otherwise — yet. But one 
can excuse anything in her now— he is all 
she has. When you see her face, you will 
be as merciful in your judgment as she is 
merciless. I ’ve arranged for a compart- 
ment for you— the surgeons and nurses 
are going with us, but you don’t have to 
meet any of them unless you want to. Can 
you come, now ?” 

She roused herself at last, and plied him 
with eager questions as they crossed over 
to their train. As they drew near she 
caught sight of two gray-garbed nurses, 
and of three professional-looking men 
standing near the steps. As they looked 
curiously at her, she dropped her veil 
quickly, and she shook her head at a query 
of Lowe’s. 

“No, no. I can’t be decent to anybody 
now. Let me hide here alone. When we 
reach the station, come and get me— I ’ll 
be braced by then. No, no, I could n’t 

ni90 


CLEM 


swallow anything. I can get something — 
there!” Her hesitation was marked. 

He took her to her compartment, lowered 
a light for her, closed one window, raised 
another, and left a magazine lying on a 
chair seat. “I dl send you in a cup of clam 
broth, anyway,” he told her quietly. “Try 
to drink it.” Then the door closed behind 
him. 

She sank back into her seat, too dazed 
and horrified for clear thought. Only one 
definite concept had been in her mind since 
Lowe had told his tale ; Reggie’s face, 
white and desperate, as she had last looked 
on it. And ringing in her ears were the 
words which only she and the sheltering 
trees had heard: “There ’s nothing left in 
life, Clem, if you deliberately jilt me this 
way — I ’m going to shake hands with the 
devil and his friends I” They were his last 
words, all but shouted back at her, as he 
turned away at last, and strode across the 
spongy carpet of pine-needles, thickly 
matted. At the time she had thought 
the words held merely pain and cut pride; 

C1923 


CLEM 


it might be that she could yet believe 
that was all they held, but her doubts 
were terrible. She tried to get the mem- 
ory of Lowe’s recital out of her mind— 
it troubled her horribly — but the fascina- 
tion of it was more powerful than her 
shrinking from it, and she lived, one 
by one, each separate scene which Lowe, 
in reply to her pressing questions, had 
briefly sketched. She seemed to see Vir- 
ginia rushing upon the boy as he crouched 
in his chair, with the smoking revolver still 
in his hand ; to see Dell and Gresham com- 
ing swiftly at her call ; to see the maddened 
mother as she rushed up from the library, 
the room which, in all probability, she had 
not quitted since she, Clem Merrit, had 
left the house. She shivered over the 
hurried diagnosis which the young physi- 
cian had made: an abdominal wound with 
the bullet’s course an unknown quantity; 
and then, with a swift revulsion of feel- 
ing, she recalled the two practical, gray- 
garbed women, and the three cool, self- 
contained surgeons who were her travel- 

“ 1:1933 


CLEM 


ing companions, and she shuddered anew 
at the thought of them, hewers and cutters 
of men. 

Time and again she tried bravely to rally 
her courage, but the awful coincidence of 
things, and the circumstantiality of the 
tragedy, cowed her. That it should have 
occurred this evening — she could hardly 
have left the house before the tragedy 
befell ! She seemed to know perfectly well 
what was being whispered and surmised in 
that shadowed home toward which she was 
speeding. Her consenting to go back into 
it— it was the least thing she could do, of 
course, and yet the greatest thing ! To face 
all of them again ; to endure all their curi- 
ous conjecturings : to stand beside that 
stricken mother through all the critical 
hours to come; to look on, perhaps, while 
Death reached out relentless hands and 
took the only treasure of that widowed 
mother’s life; to know that in such case 
the mother would go down to her grave, 
calling her, Clem Merrit, the slayer of her 
boy — 




CLEM 


She heard Lowe’s voice calling to her, a 
great way off, and she struggled upward 
through stratum after stratum of dimmed 
consciousness, to find him shaking her anx- 
iously. She looked at him at last with 
clearing vision, and then she leaned back 
with a sigh, and pressed her hand hard 
against her aching eyes. 

“Don’t go away from me again!” she 
begged piteously. “I ’ll be steadied in a 
minute ; but don’t leave me alone any 
more I” 

“You ’ve been living through the hor- 
rors, poor girl !” Lowe said. “Here ’s your 
broth. I know it ’s strong because I went 
out to see about it myself, and here ’s 
some fairly decent sherry. Drink them 
both— Clem, you must.” 

While she sipped the wine, he stood be- 
side her, looking down at her with a puz- 
zled anger still burning in his eyes. He 
wished greatly that Mrs. Wines might see 
the girl now, sore beset and all but fainting. 
He was very sure that Mrs. Wines would 
not see her so of Clem’s volition ; that, be- 

1:19s:] 


CLEM 


fore that lady, Clem would rally her 
great courage to play well the new hand 
which had been dealt her. But he wished 
that the girl might be seen by those un- 
friendly eyes as he saw her now, weak and 
dependent and sunk in pathetic sorrow. 
To one who had never seen her so, and 
had never imagined her so, it was a reve- 
lation. 

She handed him the wine-glass with a 
weary shake of her head. 

‘‘You Te disgusted with me. Jack. So 
am I with myself. Give me that clam 
stuff. What a weakling I am!’^ 

Lowe sat down opposite her, balancing 
the flower-like wine-glass in his heavy 
hand with a touch as light as a surgeon’s. 
A French dictum ran through his head 
which he forebore to quote: “Caesar was 
never so powerful as when he lay a 
corpse!” He had seen Clem Merrit in 
many a situation, and had found her inter- 
esting in them all, and mistress of them 
all, until this lamentable thing v/as forced 
upon her ; and now, broken as he had never 

1:196: 


CLEM 

imagined her, she had never appealed to 
him so strongly. 

‘‘I must have been faint for want of 
food,^’ Clem said at last, after she had 
drained the cup. ‘‘No, nothing more, 
please. But I did n’t — have much lunch- 
eon to-day, and this news coming on top of 
everything — Jack, it seems a thousand 
years since I woke this morning!” 

She leaned toward him, her elbow rest- 
ing on the chair arm, and her face sunk in 
her palm. Her voice was growing steadier 
under the influence of the stimulants Lowe 
had urged upon her. 

“You don’t believe it was suicide, do 
you ?” she asked him simply. 

“Good God, noT Lowe replied irritably. 
“He ’s too sane a brute. It ’s all rot, every 
one knows it. Listen to me : there ’s not a 
soul down there who really thinks that, but 
his mother, and she ’s half mad, poor soul 1 
Of course, it ’s hanging in the atmosphere, 
because of her fixed belief and the whole 
cursed set of circumstances. But she ’s 
alone in her delusion. The rest of us—” 

D973 


CLEM 


Clem looked at him with a faintly bitter 
smile. “The rest of you!” she breathed. 
“Oh, these surmisings and gossipings — 
they drive one mad I” 

“Well, now,” drawled Lowe soothingly, 
“you must grant, out of your just heart, 
that appearances have been provocative of 
conjecture and surmise. But you could n’t 
ever marry that young cub, Clem.” 

“No,” she assented. “I could n’t ever 
marry him.” 

There was something in her voice which 
made Lowe bend toward her in the half- 
dim light. He had been in no one’s confi- 
dence, and yet he knew, as did all of them 
at The Pines, the main outlines of the lit- 
tle comedy which had resolved itself into 
such bitter tragedy. Until now he had 
hardly been able to believe that the infatu- 
ation had been anything but one-sided. 
All who loitered might read Reggie’s 
charming story, but, knowing Clem Mer- 
rit as he knew her, he had not believed that 
the affair had ever been as serious a thing 
on either side as Mrs. Wines had made of 

[:i98i 


CLEM 


it. A swift sentence leaped to his lips, 
born of his whispered speech with Reggie 
two hours before — it was said before he 
knew it, and he pondered over that strange 
prompting to garrulity for many hours in 
the days succeeding. 

^'The boy is mad about you; he may 
bring you face to face with the question of 
immediate marriage — forgive me! He 
said as much.” 

''Before his mother?” 

Lowe nodded, mute. 

Clem turned her face away until he 
could see only its pure, fine outline in the 
shadow. 

"Tell her — when she speaks to you 
about that— and she will— that I ’ll let 
him die, hers, before I ’ll save him that 
way.” Her voice quivered with fine vibra- 
tions. 

Lowe sat back, in silence, conscious that 
he was treading on dangerously delicate 
ground. He knew but little of the particu- 
lars of this story, but he knew that in it 
the boy had played the minor part, that 


CLEM 

the two women had all the lines and all 
the business; and it bore all the earmarks 
of a woman’s handling, of that he was 
quite cynically aware. 

She turned to him at last, with her pal- 
lid face tremulous with feeling. ^'Don’t 
talk us over with any of them. Jack,” she 
said. “Let me feel that there ’s one per- 
son in that house who is n’t playing the 
waiting cat. Since he ’s said so much to 
you — I was engaged to Reggie Wines 
three weeks ago. His mother asked me 
down yonder, and I went ! And I broke the 
engagement this afternoon, and I told her 
so before I left. And now, in three hours’ 
time, I ’ll be back there, facing her again, 
across Reggie — ” 

“The only gossiping I ’ve done of you 
and Reggie has been done just now,” said 
Lowe with a slight smile. “And, since 
you and I have disposed of the subject, I 
can heartily assure you it will be the last. 
I am the farthest remove possible from a 
waiting cat. Let me rather, to your mind, 
play the part of the faithful Fido, Clem, 

1:2003 


CLEM 

—and, in addition, your very sincere 
friend!” 

He glanced out of the window at the 
dark, fleeing landscape, and reached down 
for Clem’s hand-bag. The girl’s face 
paled, and her heart began to beat with 
slow, dull throbbings as the train slowed 
down to let off this group at a station 
where otherwise it would not have paused. 
Before their car had ceased its grinding 
tremors, Lowe hurried her down its steps, 
after the nurses and surgeons, and then 
bore her with a quick rush across the sta- 
tion platform toward the touring-car, 
Reggie’s favorite, which pulsed in waiting 
for them. The fact that their traveling 
companions were already there, waiting 
for her, brought home to her more viv- 
idly than the great leaps forward of the 
car, as it started on its journey for the 
saving of life, the fact that moments did 
mean life and death, and that it was really 
Reggie who was lying all but mortally hurt 
a brief three miles ahead of them. 

There was no attempt at introduction, 

C2013 


CLEM 


and Clem sank back, with veiled face, an 
object of furtive interest to the five stran- 
gers who glanced at her many times during 
the three miles’ run. The woman in any 
case is always interesting, and they guessed 
enough of the story to make them sure that 
this beautiful girl was quite as necessary 
as the nurses to the young man’s recovery. 

They came to a swinging stop at last be- 
fore the dusky house. Every night before, 
the lights had blazed from every window. 
To-night the lower part of the house was 
only dimly lighted. Across the upper win- 
dows shadowy figures moved from time to 
time, hurrying, and eager. A single, soli- 
tary figure awaited them at the entrance. 

Clem was sitting nearest the steps when 
the car stopped, and it was Lorimer who 
helped her out. She shrank from him vis- 
ibly as he touched her. He still held her 
hands as he turned to Lowe and spoke 
rapidly : 

“They have already arranged the bil- 
liard-room, under Housman’s directions, 
for the operating-room. Will you take 

1:202;] 


CLEM 


them up there, Jack? Dell will see to any- 
thing you want. His mother has been 
kept from him as much as possible, because 
of her own condition.” 

He waited until the ominous group dis- 
appeared within the entrance door, and 
then he turned back to Clem. She had 
definitely drawn her hands away from 
him; he still felt their coldness lingering, 
like a chill, upon his own. 

“I don’t know how to tell you, and I 
must tell you,” he began incoherently, his 
face somewhat drawn with the strain of 
the day’s events. “You will blame me for- 
ever if I don’t. Mrs. Wines—” 

Clem moved away from him. With his 
words, the very sound of his voice, her 
poise came back, and her quivering nerves 
grew still. 

“Don’t tell it,” she said deliberately. 
“Mr. Lowe has prepared me.” 

“On its face it is unpardonable,” Lori- 
mer stammered. “But if you could only 
realize the frenzy of her grief and her de- 
spair — she is hardly sane — ” 

[203 3 


CLEM 


‘‘I can make more excuses for her than 
you can,’^ Clem interrupted. “I ’m noth- 
ing, now, but an inexperienced nurse, here 
for no reason but because I Ve been sent 
for.’’ 

“I have tried to make her see you — to 
make her spare you — ” Lorimer continued 
with an impetuous defense, blundering as 
he had never blundered in all his faultless 
life before. He swore at himself, under 
his breath, for his crassness. 

Clem moved further yet away from 
him, until she was leaning against a pil- 
lar, the same pillar against which she had 
crouched not twenty- four hours before, 
under the eyes of this self-same man. Her 
blue eyes looked brightly on him. 

“Don’t try to spare me — ever again,” 
she said distinctly. “ I ’m not grateful. 
No, thanks. I ’ve not been sent for yet. 
Until the doctors want me, there ’s no rea- 
son why I should go inside.” 

Her eyes were blazing and her lip 
curled again. Every instinct to haughty 
pride was alive within her. Her veins 
[: 204 :] 


CLEM 


were running warm blood now, and with 
every moment she seemed to grow more 
dangerously alive. Lorimer looked on her 
in vain search for the studied calm she had 
manifested before, for that reasonable 
good sense which had marked almost every 
previous act and speech of hers. He was 
still writhing under the calculated lashes 
she had dealt him three hours back ; and he 
writhed vicariously for his class when he 
saw the contempt which leaped to her eyes 
as she learned that her hostess refused to 
yield to what savages would make courte- 
ous necessity. He appreciated keenly her 
refusal to enter the house until she was 
summoned for the one purpose for which 
she had come. 

He walked away a few steps, and then 
he came quickly back to her. His face 
was whiter, and his eyes were gleaming 
with a rather dai;gerous light. 

“We have passed through a trying or- 
deal, all of us,” he said with a touch of bit- 
terness. “Grant me that’ much. All of it 
has been a mistake, and of the mistake no 

1:2053 


CLEM 


one is more keenly aware than the ones 
who are to blame for it—'’ 

She laughed grimly. “You ’re too gen- 
erous !” she said. “It was a woman’s trick. 
No man could have planned that sort of 
thing, and carried it out to the end. I 
never accused you of that.” 

“Then don’t accuse me of trying to 
spare you — anything!” he retorted. “I 
think that I must have put it very badly. 
I was beseeching your pity for that boy’s 
mother. Spare her, of your mercy !” 

Clem’s head went up swiftly, but in that 
moment Lowe came quickly through the 
doors, and up to her. 

“He wants to see you, Clem,” he said. 
“The surgeons will be ready in ten min- 
utes, and that time is to be his and yours. 
Drake, keep his mother away by any 
means. Dell says she ’s unnerved, and the 
boy could think of nothing but death if she 
came to him now, on the eve of the opera- 
tion. Tell her he ’s unconscious. Tell her 
anything you think of. Now, Clem!” 

Clem unpinned her hat, and cast it and 

1:2063 


CLEM 

her summer coat on a chair beside her. In 
her simple linen dress, she looked as if she 
might have just returned from a twilight 
stroll. With her head wonderfully poised, 
she followed Lowe’s heavy figure and cat- 
like tread up the shadowy stairs. And 
after them Lorimer followed, doggedly. 
He watched with somber eyes Clem’s dull 
blue skirts trail softly through the upper 
hall as she walked with Lowe toward the 
door of Reggie’s room. Before that 
closed door she paused a moment, and laid 
her hand heavily on Lowe’s arm. He bent 
toward her, whispering a few words of 
cheer, and she nodded silently. Then the 
boy’s door opened, and Dell came out. 
She uttered a smothered little cry, and 
caught Clem in a close embrace; then she 
pushed the girl gently into the room, and 
shut the door upon her. 




XIV 


C LEM went swiftly across the room, 
toward the wide-eyed boy lying on his 
bed, waiting for her. As she saw the 
white face, her heart gave one slow, pain- 
ful throb, and Reggie, watching her hun- 
grily, caught sight of the pain reflected in 
her eyes; and knew the cause thereof^ 

“It does n’t hurt — so beastly— bad !” he 
whispered reassuringly, as he put up one 
strengthless hand to her face, and tried to 
draw it down to his. “It ’s — no fun; but 
they ’ve given me some stuff that ’s going 
to my head already — I did n’t want that, 
not till after you ’d come, but they fired it 
into me, because I ’m down. Clem, it was 
all my fault — I ’ve been a fool—” 

She raised her head from where it lay 
against his cheek, and her arms tightened 
about him in a spasm of fear. Her doubts 


CLEM 


all but found utterance. But she caught 
the moan back heroically. 

“What about, dear?” she whispered, her 
lips white with dread. 

“You — this — everything! Clem, you 
did n’t mean it — what you said out yonder, 
under the pines, a thousand years ago — 
Ever since they dragged me here and laid 
me down, I ’ve known you could n’t have 
meant it. I was crazy, furious, maddened 
— up to the time the shot went home — 
then, somehow, things cleared — I saw then 
you could n’t have meant it — it was so 
beautiful — it had to last — but you laughed 
once, under that ghastly tree, a thousand 
years ago — and the sound of your laugh 
filled me with madness— you did n’t mean 
it?” 

“No, no!” Clem whispered. “I did n’t 
mean it! Not that way, Reggie.” 

“So I came back here— just in time to 
see you going away — and I came up here, 
and got out my guns and things— to make 
my choice— I was a fool, Clem— I ought 
to have faced you down and put— if I ever 


CLEM 


get up from this, I know I can. Or if I M 
ever been in love with a girl before — 
you ’re such a crazy lot, all of you! — but I 
picked up that automatic pistol— there was 
a trick about the trigger I did n’t under- 
stand, and when the thing blew up, it 
landed in a bad place, darling.” 

“Reggie, Reggie!” the girl whispered. 
She raised her head and looked into his 
eyes. He had sunk back, deep into his pil- 
lows, his face contracted with a slight 
spasm of pain. 

“Reggie!” she murmured again, desper- 
ately. “You did n’t—” then she drew 
back, still staring into the boy’s fast dim- 
ming eyes; whether she was wise or ex- 
ceeding unwise she did not know. “Do 
you know what all of them out yonder 
think, Reggie— that you did it on pur- 
pose—” 

The boy frowned. “No, they don’t,” he 
said shortly. “When I found I was n’t 
dead, I told ’em over and over that it was 
an accident. They can’t think anything 
else — I told J*ack to tell you that. But I 
[2103 


CLEM 


wanted to see you alone, to tell you the 
truth— what a damn fool I Ve been, dar- 
ling, and to make you— marry me now, 
Clem. They ’re going to operate, they say 
— is it — very serious?” 

His voice was thick now, and his mut- 
tered words were hardly coherent. “Is it 
very serious?” he repeated. Again her 
arms tightened about him. 

“It must n’t be, dear,” she murmured. 
“You ’re so big and strong and well—” 

He interrupted fretfully. “I wish I 
could stand things without ether. I hate 
dope. I like to know what ’s happening — 
Anyway I want more time, and a clear 
head, since we ’ve got things straightened 
out between us — before they dump me in 
yonder, and begin to work— that ’s just 
why I did n’t want ’em to give me that first 
dose-” 

His voice trailed off into incoherency. 
Clem glanced up from her agonized gaz- 
ing, as a bright shaft of light fell across 
the foot of the bed through an open door. 
The white-clad figure of one of the sur- 


CLEM 


geons stood in the doorway, and through it 
one of the nurses, white-clad too, came 
quickly, bearing the merciful ether cone. 
Clem bent over the boy and kissed him pas- 
sionately. 

“Shut your eyes, dear,’’ she whispered 
unsteadily, “for a quiet nap, and when you 
wake up, everything is going to be all 
right.” 

During the hour through which the op- 
eration endured, Clem waited in the upper 
hall, with Lowe and Lorimer and Gresham. 
Dell and Virginia were with the mother, 
whose convulsive moans pierced the tense 
stillness of the house at irregular and 
nerve-racking intervals. 

Through it all Clem sat silent, hardly 
moving, save to shield her face at times 
with her hand. Those were invariably the 
moments when Lowe, watching her unob- 
trusively, came over to her, rescuing her 
from herself with some message from the 
operating-room, or some word of cheer. 
Most of the time, however, she sat with her 

1:2123 


CLEM 


head thrown back against her chair, sick 
and faint with suspense. Once, when her 
eyes had been closed for a space of time 
whose measuring she did not know, she 
was roused by a touch on her arm, and 
looked up dizzily to find Lorimer standing 
over her with a glass of wine in his hand. 
She took it gratefully, for she was all but 
swooning, as she very well knew, but she 
found no word of thanks for his thought 
of her. After that she did not dare close 
her eyes for fear of slipping into uncon- 
sciousness — this hour of inaction and im- 
aginings was sapping her strength. She 
kept her hold of consciousness by watch- 
ing, with wide, bright eyes, Lorimer’s rest- 
less tramping up and down the length of 
the hall, whose monotony he broke with 
many purposeless exits on to the broad, 
second-story veranda which lay along the 
eastern side of the house; by keeping con- 
scientious record of Lowe’s rapidly smoked 
cigarettes ; by making careful note of 
Gresham’s ungraceful contortions. The 
faint, sickish odor of anesthetics, and the 

1:2133 


CLEM 


pungent smell of antiseptics crept into the 
hall, and stirred her vivid brain to keener, 
more unendurable imaginings. 

But the long hours dragged themselves 
out at last, and Clem was called again to 
Reggie’s room. She went, feeling like a 
guilty thing. If only he would ask for his 
mother, for Dell, Virginia, for any other 
woman in the house! Yet, when she en- 
tered the room, and saw his white face, and 
heard his murmured call for her, she lost 
sight of everything but him and his wel- 
fare. Reggie’s recovery — and he had his 
chance, even though the chances against 
him were great — was all that mattered to 
her from that moment. Every shred of 
self-consciousness fell away from her in 
that moment, and she felt herself revivified 
with a rush of self-confidence which was 
old and yet new. Reggie had need of her 
in his sore stress. Whatever circumstances 
had led to this state of affairs, she had her 
vital place in this circle of people at last. 
And as she realized, instantaneously with 
the boy’s muttered call for her, how in- 


CLEM 


dispensable she was, all thought of the 
others fell away, and she gave herself, 
with a wonderfully vital concentration, to 
one solemn purpose— the saving of this 
boy’s life. Nothing else mattered; and 
when she bent over him, in all her glorious 
strength of mind and body, she seemed, 
even to the weary little group of surgeons 
and nurses, nothing less than a giver of 
life. 




XV 


'ID she seemed nothing less than that to 



Lorimer, when they met, face to face, 
early the next morning, in the shadowy up- 
per hall. She had just closed Reggie’s 
door behind her as Lorimer came down 
from the floor above. 

‘‘How is he, after the night ?” he asked. 

“Asleep now. He ’s been restless, up to 
dawn. The doctors don’t say much.” 

She stood before him, in her white linen 
dress, superbly strong, superbly alive. The 
very sight of her this morning made his 
blood pulse faster. From her night of 
watching there lingered a slight pallor 
which only heightened the new charm 
which enveloped her. 

Her brows met in a slight frown, under 
his intense gaze, and Lorimer, catching 
himself up instantly, broke the too oppres- 
sive silence. 


1:2163 


CLEM 


“There is nothing at all I can do for 
you ? Could you be spared now for a short 
drive or ride? It is n’t possible that you 
have been up all night !” 

‘T ’ve just had a few hours of rest,” she 
said, with a slow shake of her head. “I ’m 
even going to have my breakfast sent up 
here. They want me within call all the time 
to-day. Whenever Reggie rouses, he wants 
me, you see,” she added simply. 

She moved away from him, had turned 
quite aside in fact, but she came back, and 
addressed him brusquely: 

“Look here! You can tell Mrs. Wines 
better than anybody; she ’ll stand it from 
you. Twice last night she stood at this 
door, staring into the room, with those 
wild, fierce eyes — it gave me the shivers. 
Of course Reggie’s pretty bad, and she 
may blame me a lot ; but you tell her this : 
what I said to her yesterday afternoon, 
stands! I ’d not marry him— not to save 
his life— because she ’d rather see him 
dead — she would n’t thank me. I ’ve got 
to be in there with him — it ’s doctors’ or- 

1:2173 


CLEM 

ders— God knows I wish she could be there 
instead. But he wants me, and only me, 
and so he shall have me, all my days and 
nights, till I can give him back to her — 
well! I ’m no Indian-giver. All this — ” 
she swept her hands out in a wonderful 
gesture — “has been like a scratch across a 
picture. I Ve told him all sorts of things, 
all last night; but none of it stands except 
what I told her. You tell her that. Tell 
her not to get scared. I don't want a thing 
she 's set her heart on." 

Her voice was perfectly level, and a per- 
son with an untrained ear would have said 
it was emotionless. Lorimer knew voices 
better, and knew her better, and he put out 
his hand toward hers on an impulse of an 
admiration unbounded. 

“You are wonderful, wonderful!” he 
said. 

At her quick start he let her hand fall. 
A faint, fretful cry drifted to them 
through the closed door. It was Reggie, 
calling her name. 

For a moment he stood in the doorway, 


CLEM 


watching her as she went quickly across 
the room and bent over the boy, who was 
still murmuring her name with impatient 
tenderness. He saw her drop lightly to the 
floor and slip her arm under the tossing 
brown head. He saw her lips brush his 
cheek lightly, and her own cheek laid 
against the boy’s. And then he closed the 
door decisively, and went across the broad 
corridor to the long doors which opened on 
that upper veranda where he sat through 
most of the night before. It was very 
early, hardly six o’clock, and the weary 
household was still sleeping. 

He sat down in the chair which he had 
occupied for so great a part of the night be- 
fore, with a keen memory of those leaden- 
winged hours. Here he and Gresham and 
Lowe had sat, ready for anything, but so 
patently useless. To them Dell had flitted 
from time to time, with bits of news, or 
messages. Reggie was recovering well 
from the anesthetic; Mrs. Wines was un- 
der the influence of an opiate; Virginia 
had yielded to entreaty, and had gone to 

1:2193 


CLEM 


her room; Clem was still needed; every 
time she stirred to go away the boy roused 
and asked for her. And to them all, to 
Dell sitting curled up beside Gresham in a 
huge chair, and to Lowe and himself, had 
come, just before the dawn, Clem Merrit, 
with her hair and dress in disarray and her 
face white and weary. 

‘‘I came to tell you all that I am sent 
away for the rest of the night,” she had 
said directly, ‘‘because I ’m not needed 
any more for a while ; and that everything 
is as hopeful as it can possibly be now. If 
Mrs. Wines is awake — oh, I ’m glad. 
But if she had been waiting for word she 
ought to have even this little bit of good 
news.” 

And then Dell had whirled herself to her 
feet, and with characteristic rapidity had 
taken charge of the girl. And here he sat 
again, after four brief hours of rest, reliv- 
ing it all. 

For Drake Lorimer, since Clem Mer- 
rit’s parting words to him the day before, 
had not had any consecutive moments in 


CLEM 


which to consider all they held for him, 
and all that they might mean to him. He 
had been writhing under them for a thou- 
sand years, it seemed to him, so swiftly 
had event followed on event in these last 
twelve hours. One sentence of hers had 
rung in his ears, ever since she had uttered 
it: ‘‘No one side of life can afford to sit 
back in a smug little corner and say, ‘I ’m 
itr ” 

She had accused them all of being snobs. 
As she had granted, it was not a pretty 
word. But she had uttered it firmly, 
though not until he himself had put it into 
speech. And after uttering it, she had 
explained it, definitely; and Lorimer re- 
sented, with an appreciation both of its 
justness and unjustness, her classification 
of him. 

But he resented far more deeply his clas- 
sification of her. He had taken her at a 
merely surface value, and even in that sur- 
face valuation of her he had been unfair. 
He had labeled her nouveau riche, with 
all that it implies of vulgarity and lack of 

1:2213 


CLEM 


breeding. And yesterday, in her departure 
from the place where she had been put to 
the torture, she had shown a justness of 
judgment which had shamed him utterly. 
She had refused to blame the mother for 
the cruel trick practised on her, because she 
remembered, resolutely, that mother’s son. 
She had granted them all their point of 
view, and in her sane, personal judgment 
of them, had taken that view-point into 
consideration. By so much had she shown 
a fineness which they, in their judgment of 
her and her motives, had lacked. And if 
she had shown them justice when she left 
them, she had shown them the uttermost 
mercy in the manner of her return. He 
could never forget that moment when 
she refused to enter the house until 
she had her orders from those in 
authority, the boy’s physicians. She 
had refused even then to blame Mrs. 
Wines; had ignored all her frenzies of 
grief ; but she had retained her own 
standards. 

And all this meant that she had reached 
1:222;] 


CLEM 


to heights where they had not ascended; 
and that they had sunk to depths on whose 
brink she stood aloof. 

For one undisturbed hour he gripped 
with searching self-questioning. He had 
felt assured for many years that he had 
a philosopher’s natural view of life and 
men and women. Not for all of ten years, 
until this last month, has he met any one, 
man or woman, who had unsettled his cool, 
tempered judgment, whose personality had 
not lent itself to general rules and classifi- 
cations. But this girl had been a disquiet- 
ing force in his life, ever since he had seen 
her. She had uprooted, ruthlessly, his 
philosophy, had shaken his conventions, 
his beliefs, most of what he had termed 
his knowledge of men and women and life. 
And he knew that he could compass no 
peace of mind or spirit until in some way 
he had made atonement for his crass judg- 
ment of her. 

He looked up to see Mrs. Wines coming 
toward him, her hands held out in piteous 
appeal. 


1:2233 


CLEM 


‘‘Will the doctors say anything to you?” 
she asked him. “I went into his room last 
night — twice! And this morning — I have 
just come from him, from the door where 
they let me stand, out of his, sight, but in 
hearing of his voice that is calling always 
for ‘Clem I’ ‘Clem !’ ‘Clem !’ They tried to 
make me stay in my room, within sound of 
that unending cry of his — 

Of them all, life was hardest, that day, 
for Frances Wines, and Lorimer realized 
it. He understood that she, too, had looked 
upon the picture he had seen ; had watched 
Clem Merrit on her knees beside the bed, 
with her strong young arms about the boy, 
with her cheek laid against his, soothing 
him, necessary to him, as she, his mother, 
was not. 

Lorimer went to meet her, and put her 
into a low, comfortable chair. “You won’t 
forget that the slightest touch of fever al- 
ways sets Reggie off,” he reminded her. 
“He has raved through all his illnesses. 
We have everything to help us, the sur- 
geons we most desired, and nurses, and 

1:2243 


CLEM 


Clem Merrit. And from her lips, given to 
me an hour ago, I have a message for you 
— I want you to listen to it now.” 

He said it over slowly, almost word for 
word: — he shall have me, all my days 
and nights, until I give him back to her — 
well !” “ — I ’m no Indian-giver— ” “—it ’s 
like a scratch across a picture — ” All her 
phrasings and intonations came back to 
him as he repeated her words to Frances 
Wines. 

She listened in silence, her mind dis- 
traught with her grief. Only one thought 
filled her brain ; the conviction that her son 
was lying, all but self-slain, because of this 
girl. Lorimer knew her thought, and his 
face grew sterner. 

“I have kept the morbid promise you 
demanded,” he said. “I have not sug- 
gested the idea of suicide to the surgeons. 
But neither have they suggested it to me. 
I will swear that it is nothing but an un- 
fortunate accident. But however that may 

He came closer to her, and spoke with 


CLEM 


added emphasis : “It is worse than barbar- 
ous for her to continue with us under pres- 
ent conditions. She will stay — oh, yes! 
But each moment that she stays — so — only 
serves to raise her, and to lower us, infi- 
nitely. She did us an infinite favor in 
coming back — she could do no less, you 
say. Most certainly she could do no more, 
after the manner of her leaving. And 
every moment that she stays here, a pariah 
in your eyes, we are proving ourselves less 
and less her peers. And I, for one, writhe 
under it.” 

Lorimer was speaking with such earnest- 
ness that he did not notice Dell’s approach. 
As he finished, she spoke quickly. 

“And I, too, dear Aunt Frances. I am 
Clem Merrit’s very good friend. We 
sealed terms and conditions last night, and 
I spoke to her very frankly of this 
wretched business. We must play up to her. 
She is no more the same girl who swept 
into your dining-room that first night she 
came here, in her pale-gold dress and all , 
her crudities, than we are the same people 

1:2263 


CLEM 


we were before we met her. Something 
volcanic has happened to all of us. Every 
man here is her friend — ah!” 

She broke off with a cry of disgust at 
her own stupidity, as she saw the look 
which crossed Mrs. Wines’s face. 

“Oh, every man, my dear Dell!” she 
murmured. Then she broke into rapid 
speech. “It is n’t that I don’t concede the 
girl her good points — she has them — but 
she alone is to blame for this awful thing. 
It is good of her to come back — yes ! — but 
she could do no less. And being back— oh, 
my boy, my boy !” 

Dell looked upon the white face help- 
lessly. With a dimness of insight with 
which she did not have often to struggle, 
she wondered if this was, after all, mother- 
hood; this blind intensity, this bending of 
all things else to the ultimate good of the 
best beloved. Dell’s own child had died 
in its infancy, six years before, and she 
had never had another. She was hardly 
made for motherhood, for many of its 
potent instincts were lacking in her, but a 


CLEM 


stifled longing after her brief maternality 
stirred painfully within her at times. It 
stirred now; it made her pitiful toward 
the great resentment which lay in this 
mother’s eyes ; but her heart throbbed too, 
for the victim of this mother’s devotion to 
her son; and, finally, because there was 
nothing left for her or Lorimer to do or 
say, they went away together. 

All day long Mrs. Wines wrestled with 
herself ; she held Clem Merrit’s message in 
her hands, and she looked upon it steadily, 
from every standpoint. ‘‘ — I ’d not marry 
him to save his life — because she ’d rather 
see him dead — she would n’t thank me!” 
It sounded brutal. But it did not sound 
more brutal than it was. 

And when the day dragged into evening ; 
when the boy’s fever mounted higher, and 
Lorimer, with troubled face, held her back 
from Reggie’s doorway, asking her to 
wait, because the delirium was violent and 
she could do nothing; she seemed to know 
by instinct what he was saving her from 
hearing. A few words floated out to her, 


CLEM 


enough to confirm her instant, intuitive 
knowledge; her boy was raving against 
her, against her injustice, her cruelty. “He 
blames you — some,” Clem Merrit had 
dared to tell her. Yes, he blamed her. 

It took her solemn watch that night, 
from midnight to dawn, to break utterly 
the stiff-necked, bitter anger which had 
held her for so many hours; that solemn 
watch which she kept, alone, upon the 
room where her boy lay, with his nurses 
and with Clem. From the darkened hall, 
where she sat unseen, she looked stead- 
fastly upon the girl’s face, as it bent 
above the boy’s. It was sleep that he 
needed, and that he would not take unless 
Clem’s arm lay beneath his head. So often, 
at first, the girl seemed to think he was 
sleeping soundly, only to see him rouse into 
irritable consciousness at the first motion of 
her withdrawing arm ; and at last, for two 
long hours before the dawn, Clem knelt be- 
side him, motionless, racked with a weary 
pain to which she would not succumb. 

It was just dawn when the nurses lifted 

1:2293 


CLEM 


her to her feet, from the spot where she had 
knelt for two hours. One of the first bad 
breaks in the boy’s case was spanned, and 
in the reaction her strength slipped momen- 
tarily away. She could not walk at first, 
and her very life seemed ebbing out of her 
when she finally stepped into the hall with 
one of the nurses, bound for, what seemed 
to her an impossible goal, her own room, 
across the corridor. 

She seemed to be walking in a painful 
dream ; it was a dream that Reggie’s 
mother came up to her, touched her, spoke 
to her; spoke to the nurse in a frightened 
voice about her. The dream still enveloped 
her as she lay upon her bed, her cramped 
muscles helpless to aid her, and felt Mrs. 
Wines’s hands no less tender, and almost 
as skilful as the nurse’s, loosen her clothes 
and make her comfortable. It was a dream 
of dreams when she felt Mrs. Wines push 
away the sleeve from' the weary arm where 
Reggie’s head had rested for so long, and 
begin to rub back into life the numbed 
muscles. Clem flung up her other arm 

C2303 


CLEM 


over her face, and hid it so, for many min- 
utes. It was all a dream— she had no de- 
sire to wake. She heard the . nurse say 
something in a low voice; heard Mrs. 
Wines’s assent ; heard the sound of a closing 
door. The nurse had left them. And still 
those cool, magnetic hands caressed her — 

She thrilled into life at last, when she 
felt hot tears falling on her arm, and she 
turned her head and stared into Mrs. 
Wines’s face. As their eyes met Clem put 
up a protesting hand, but Mrs. Wines laid 
her own upon it. 

“You stopped me two days ago,” she 
murmured, “ — in what I would have said 
to you. It is all something almost too bit- 
ter for words; and yet you were brave 
enough to speak, and to speak most justly 
and gently to me ; and everything you said 
was quite true, and took more courage in 
the saying than I had — or have. Drake 
gave me your message this morning — I am 
bitterly ashamed I seemed so in need of it 
— I have blamed you bitterly for too many 
things — and if he lives — ” 


CLEM 


Her voice broke utterly. 

Clem turned her face until it lay against 
Mrs. Wines’s. “If he lives,” she whispered, 
“he ’ll be yours. Can’t you see the thing be- 
tween us is dead, dead ! It can’t be helped ; 
it ’s over and done with forever.” 

She felt Mrs. Wines’s fleeting kiss on 
her forehead, and she caught the older 
woman’s hand, and held it fast. 

“I could n’t bear to have you say this 
sort of thing to me, ever again,”’ she whis- 
pered ; “but I ’ll never forget your coming 
here to-night — never !” 

And then she sank into a dead, dreamless 
sleep. 

/ 


1:2323 


XVI 


ALL through the anxious week that fol- 
lowed, Mrs. Winesnever lost her won- 
der at Clem Merrit’s resolute matter-of- 
factness; at her cool acceptance of sick- 
room conditions. It seemed ever new and 
strange to her that Clem should bend so in- 
stantly over Reggie when he called her; 
should kiss his lips and forehead; should 
press her cool cheek to his; all with no 
more self-consciousness than when she 
gave him the medicine or food which he 
would take from no one else. And mean- 
time he passed from crisis to crisis, until 
there came at last a night when the gods of 
life and death fought visibly above his 
bed for possession of him, in full panoply 
of war, before the pale, wan mother, and 
the determined girl who refused to look 
beyond any present moment of struggle. 
And in the end, life, was victor, though by 

1^331 


CLEM 


so small a margin that they dared not hope 
too much until day after day of steady 
gaining rolled around to make them sure. 

Then it was that the mother’s hard hours 
came again. In his convalescence, slow 
and wavering, her boy was not hers. He 
liked to have her near him, when Clem was 
away; and after those long days and nights 
of constant care, it was needful that she 
should be out of the sick-room for many 
hours, gaining the rest which she sorely 
needed. During these hours Reggie lay pa- 
tiently enough, with his mother in attend- 
ance, but he talked of Clem incessantly. 

“You like her now, mother!” he would 
say; and at her assent he would smile 
proudly. “I always told you she was the 
finest sort of a girl,” he would assert. 
“Think of a girl like her sticking by a 
fellow for days and nights, when the house 
was full of doctors and nurses — just be- 
cause he yelled for her — she ’s the finest 
sort of a girl !” 

It was all boyish and very simple, and so 
dear. She loved him all the more for his 

1:234:] 


CLEM 


loyalty, and she found herself suffering 
vicariously for him in that moment when 
he must learn that all the sweet assurances 
which Clem had murmured to him in those 
hours of his illness were mere murmurings. 
For herself, she could not doubt Clem Mer- 
rit’s firm resolve; yet she caught herself 
rebelling at it once or twice, while she 
watched her boy lying dreamily, with an 
odd, tender little smile curving his clean 
young mouth. Was the girl to go happily 
on her way, leaving Reggie behind her, 
suffering and forlorn ! It was monstrous ! 
When it meant suffering for them both, it 
was easier for the mother to contemplate it. 
Now, when it seemed that only her boy was 
to wince beneath the bludgeoning of fate, 
the situation took on a different aspect. 

She did not do Clem Merrit full justice 
yet; doubt there was if she ever could, so 
dissimilar were their planes of thought and 
action. Yet she was forced to this conclu- 
sion at last: Clem did her fuller justice 
than she did Clem; Clem judged motives 
more gently, and truly sympathized with 

1:2353 


CLEM 


limitations to a more vital degree. And 
Frances Wines was forced to this better 
knowledge of the girl, past all her gentle 
laws of caste and race, and past all her 
grave reserve. 

Clem Merrit’s own straightforwardness 
helped the situation as nothing else did or 
could. In her own phrase, she had buried 
the hatchet deep in the uncomfortable past. 
After all, there were only two people here 
against whom she had felt heavy resent- 
ment, and both of these people had done all 
things to atone. Mrs. Wines’s tears had 
done more than any words; and Drake 
Lorimer had left nothing undone which an 
ever-present thoughtfulness could prompt. 
But with all he had done, he had left much 
unsaid. This, with some sixth sense, Clem 
knew; and she was warding off any fur- 
ther reparation on his part. She had 
had enough of it. She was willing to 
forget. 

Therefore she accepted Lorimer as she 
accepted Lowe, and LovVe as. she accepted 

1:2363 


CLEM 


Lorimer, on an easy basis of frank good- 
fellowship. Both of them were resource- 
ful in their plans for her comfort and rec- 
reation, and more often than not it was 
with both of them that she departed on 
her rides and her walks. She swept all the 
cobwebs of finesse and restraint away from 
her path, by her resolute ignoring of what 
had gone before, and matters settled into a 
state of freedom and comfort as delight- 
ful as it was surprising. 

And she had no more reason to say she 
had no woman friend. For Dell Gresham 
was outspokenly that — Clem Merrit’s 
friend. Lowe watched the growth of that 
friendship with humorous interest, feeling 
a certain proprietary pride in it. He had 
divined the kinship in their natures long 
since, and every man is proud of proof that 
he is intuitive. 

As for his pride in his own conception of 
Clem Merrit, it waxed with each day. She 
had not failed herself. She had faced as 
hard a situation as life would probably 

1:2373 


CLEM 


hold for her ; and she had faced it gallantly, 
with her head held high, and with lips that 
smiled without bravado, but with a very 
.fine courage. She had won against the 
heaviest of odds, by sheer force of that 
splendid spirit which glowed within her. 
Throughout this most bitter test, she had 
not been found wanting, in the most essen- 
tial sense. She had rather shown unsus- 
pected strength along lines where one 
might look for the least resistance. As 
matters had developed, hers was the advan- 
tage; theirs, the damage. All along the 
line they had been routed, and, one by one, 
they were coming back, to sit in her tent’s 
shadow, a Hudibrastic denouement of 
which she was splendidly unconscious. 

Now and then Lowe permitted himself a 
mild wonder as to the still hidden truth of 
Reggie’s shooting fray. Since the evening 
on which he went into town to meet Clem 
and bring her back, no words relating to it 
had passed her lips. It was a subject ta- 
booed between them, and Lowe did not 
know whether the girl’s lips were sealed 


CLEM 


from uncertainty or distressing knowledge. 
In a happier contingency he felt sure that 
he would have been told. He did not fore- 
see in just what way things hidden were to 
be revealed, nor the far-reaching effects of 
that revealing. 


1^391 


XVII 


HE revelation came, six weeks to a 



A day from the time of Reggie’s mis- 
hap, on a morning when Clem was absent, 
riding hard with Lorimer along the coun- 
try roads. It involved the entire house- 
hold, which accounted for the noticeable 
tensity of the luncheon hour; a tensity 
which Clem and Lorimer, entering the 
dining-room almost at the close of the 
meal, missed. They were in their riding 
clothes, and they offered but scant apology 
therefor. 

“We ’re famished,” Clem said to Dell, 
as she dropped into a vacant chair beside 
her. “I ’m keeping my hat on. My hair 
would drop to my knees if I did n’t.” She 
flung her whip into a corner and drew off 
her gloves. Then she glanced about the 
table. 

“Where ’s Reggie?” she demanded. 


1^40 -2 


CLEM 


“Did n’t he feel up to coming down?” For 
Reggie had been spending most of the last 
few days down-stairs. 

“Oh, he is perfectly well,” Mrs. Wines 
answered her hastily. “He — ” 

Lowe filled in the pause promptly, be- 
fore the wonder in Clem’s eyes grew too 
great. 

“He is sulking, Clem,” he remarked con- 
fidentially, at her elbow. “He desires to 
see you immediately.” 

“What rot!” Clem said. “What ’s up, 
Jack?” 

She was glancing carefully about the 
table, and she felt a definite change. If 
Jack’s aside was true, Reggie’s sulking was 
making his relatives undeniably happy. 
Mrs. Wines, especially, looked the embodi- 
ment of peace and joy. She made a some- 
what hasty meal, and rose abruptly, while 
the others were still sitting casually about. 

“This riding habit is too stuffy to en- 
dure,” she said. “Do let me go 1” 

As she passed Mrs. Wines, that lady 
reached out a detaining hand. “Reggie has 


CLEM 


been asking for you, Clem,” she said. 
There was a note of eager joy in her voice 
which puzzled the girl. 

“Yes,” she said. “I ’ll go to him in a lit- 
tle while.” 

She stopped at Reggie’s door, before she 
went to her own room, and tapped lightly 
on it with her whip handle. ‘T ’m back, 
Reggie,” she called. “As soon as I get out 
of these riding things I ’ll come in.” 

“Never mind about the riding togs,” said 
Reggie crossly. “Come in now, Clem. I 
want to talk to you about something im- 
portant. Can you fix up a deal to keep the 
whole lot of rotters down-stairs from run- 
ning in and out? I want to talk to you 
alone. It ’s important, I tell you.” 

He was wagging his head ominously, 
and his frown was fierce. Clem stared at 
him in wonder and some amusement, and 
then she came farther into the room, and 
closed the door behind her. 

“It just occurs to pie that they ’re all pre- 
pared down-stairs, for this little wig-wag of 
ours,” she remarked coolly. “I don’t think 

1:2423 


CLEM 

we ’ll take any big chances if we settle 
down right now.” 

She came freely across the room, her 
whip still swinging lightly in her hand, and 
she stood for a moment beside his chair, in 
her severe habit, with her small Derby still 
banded tight to her head. As he did not 
speak at once, she dropped into a chair op- 
posite him, cutting at the intervening air 
lightly with her whip. 

“It was a gorgeous morning!” she said 
at length. “Mr. Lorimer and I were out 
till luncheon. I wonder when those beasts 
of doctors are going to let you ride again !” 

“That ’s what I want to talk to you 
about, Clem,” Reggie interposed. “Have 
you got any idea of what people are saying 
about this condemned shooting fray of 
mine? Do you know what people here 
think?” 

“Nobody ’s told me what anybody 
thinks,” Clem replied cheerfully. “I ’ve 
been too busy to listen, if any one had.” 

“That ’s what I told ’em,” Reggie af- 
firmed. “Mother got in here before I got 


CLEM 


through with Vee — Vee gave it all away — 
and they both made a great powwow. Vee 
let out too much, without meaning to, and 
I jumped on her, and jerked the rest out 
before she knew it. She ’s been thinking, 
and mother ’s been thinking, all along, and 
all the rest of 'em, for that matter, Dell and 
Eaton and Drake — that it was a blunder at 
suicide!— that I tried to do for myself with 
a confounded bullet ! — that I 'm alive to-day 
only because I did n’t know how to shoot 
to kill! Vee owned up that mother was 
certain of it, and that Drake and Eaton 
were afraid of it — and as many more who 
knew you ’d tried to throw me down; 
owned up that everybody in this shack, 
down to the stable boy, thinks I ’m a near- 
suicide, a poor, driveling, sniveling fool! 
That I tried to shoot myself because a girl 
had thrown me over! Well, it hurt that 
day, but not that way — ” 

He raised his eyes to Clem’s all too ex- 
pressive face, and met her betraying eyes 
full; and he bent toward her with a dark 
flush flooding his face. 


CLEM 

‘‘You too!’' he said sharply. tu, 

Brute r did not come in its first utterance 
from a heart more deeply charged with 
woe. 

It was Clem’s turn to flush slightly, and 
to rush to hurried words. 

“Truly, Reggie, no! Not even when 
Jack told me your mother thought it, the 
night he came after me, and brought me 
back. Not till I saw you, before the opera- 
tion, and you yourself said things that 
made me sure — for a while, that is — that it 
was a plain case of — ” 

Reggie checked her with a hand up- 
raised in awful dignity. 

“Did it enter your head, once, before you 
saw me all dopey and queer in the head, as 
a possible thing?” he asked. 

Clem flecked delicately at her riding boot 
and did not reply. 

“It did!” Reggie groaned, and fell back 
into his chair, with his eyes closed against 
the alluring sight of her as she sat there in 
her riding dress, with her whip flecking the 
air. 

1:2453 


CLEM 

''Now look here, Reggie,” Clem said at 
last, with that business-like directness which 
distinguished her and all her deeds. “Just 
figure it out a bit, will you. I told you 
that afternoon that I would n’t marry you 
— and I want you to get accustomed, by the 
way, to the thought that that statement still 
stands. You ’ve been desperately sick, and 
you had to be told all sorts of creamy non- 
sense, as nonsensical as what you said be- 
fore the operation evidently was. Just 
get used to that, will you? So off you 
go in a huff — perhaps you don’t remem- 
ber what you said as you cut out behind 
those pine-trees, but I do very well, and 
did, that same evening, when Jack met 
me with the pleasant news that you were 
shot. You had said that you were going 
to the devil — well, I thought, if you ’ll par- 
don me, that you ’d started. And then I 
remembered what a cracking shot you are, 
and when Jack said a second time that it 
was the sort of wound it was, I was sure 
the other idea was absurd, and that it 
was only an accident, doubly unfortunate 

1:246: 


CLEM 


because it happened to come at such a very 
uncomfortable time for all of us. So I 
come back here, because you said you 
wanted me, and I ’m sent in here before 
they operate, and you begin a lot of burble 
about being a fool, and thoughts of murder 
when I laughed— and, in short, I was pretty 
thoroughly scared ! Men have done it, you 
know,’’ she added defensively, as she 
caught Reggie’s look of dire contempt. 

“Fools have!” muttered Reggie. 

“Well, fools, if you like. They ’re lots 
of ’em loose in every woods. Of course 
you said it was an accident, but you ’d be 
likely to say that ; anybody would, as soon 
as he found he could still talk, whether he 
was telling the truth or not. So that did n’t 
count for or against you. And the doctors 
did n’t count, in their diagnoses, for or 
against, and when they did n’t say it was 
self-inflicted, or hint at it, why, nobody 
took it on himself to start the story.” 

Reggie sat in wrathful dignity, and 
Clem watched him quizzically. She had 
disappointed him sorely, that was evident; 

1:2473 


CLEM 

and she was a bit sorry, but it was funny 
— his fuming impotency. She wondered 
dumbly how much longer she could pre- 
serve a fitting gravity in the face of it. 

‘‘That ’s it,” the boy said at last. “All 
the talk! About you and me! It ’s not 
decent sort of talk for you, and it makes 
me out a driveling fool, the sort of fool 
any right-minded girl ought to want to 
shoot, herself ! The idea of a man’s shoot- 
ing himself for a girl !” 

Clem broke into ringing laughter. 
“What ’s the proper thing, Reggie?” she 
asked, unwisely. 

“You wait and see!” the boy retorted 
with wrath. 

Clem looked deeply on him; then she 
rose from her chair, and went over to him, 
and dropped on her knees beside him. 

“Listen to me, Reggie!” she said. 
“There ’s no waiting about it, for either of 
us; because the thing ’s done for, ended! 
Don’t you see? It was beautiful while it 
lasted, and no girl would ever want a 
dearer lover, but it was midsummer mad- 
[ 248 ] 


CLEM 


ness, and the summer ’s all but gone. It 
was all my fault — I ought to have known 
better — I did know better; but you loved 
me in a way that no man ’s ever loved me 
— you can’t understand, and I can’t tell you 
any more about it; but I loved you dearly 
for that sort of love you gave me. But 
that sort of love you felt for me could n’t 
last — it never lasts; and unless there ’s 
something else to fall back on, better and 
more solid, it goes like a bubble— like this 
love of ours has gone. Ah, yes, it has 
gone, Reggie! You need n’t own it to me 
now, but it ’s gone from us.” 

She looked mournfully on the tumbled 
brown head so near her. 

“Listen,” she murmured. “I ’m the first 
girl you ’ve loved, Reggie. Let ’s ticket 
you the tenth man for me! That does n’t 
sound nice, does it? You don’t like it! 
Well, the man I marry must like it, must 
be glad of it, must thank heaven for every 
man of them all who ’s had any part in 
making me the sort of woman I am — what- 
ever sort I am. And you can’t love me that 

1:2493 


CLEM 


way, yet. And by the time you can — per- 
haps by then I should n’t like the work of 
the ten women who had come between us, to 
change you from the boy you are now ! Or 
it may not be ten women, Reggie, but the 
one girl you ’ll love. And I don’t think 
she ’ll mind the thought of me, not if she 
understands the way you love me, dear. 
Tell her it was Love you loved, and that I 
stood for it for a brief three months ; and 
she ’ll understand, better than you under- 
stand now. It ’s ended, Reggie; it ’s 
ended!” 

She was still kneeling by him, her hands 
pressed hard on his shoulders, and, as she 
finished, she drew his face down to hers, 
and kissed him on the lips. His eyes looked 
dazed and hurt. 

“It ’s not ended,” he said stubbornly. 
“You ’ve been listening to nonsense — if 
mother has been saying — ” 

Clem put her hand firmly over his 
mouth. “She ’s said nothing — nothing — 
nothing! She never would — again. She 
took me to my room and stayed by me one 


CLEM 


night till I fell asleep. We watched over 
you together, she and I— she knows me 
better than she did; and she trusts me. I 
know she trusts me, now. But it ’s ended, 
Reggie ; it ’s over 

Reggie groaned dismally. "‘If only I 
were on my feet again ! I can’t hold you to 
what you said to a delirious fool; a fool 
you thought had shot himself, and was too 
much of a fool to kill himself — ” 

Clem’s eyes brimmed with tearful laugh- 
ter. ‘‘Don’t you see how absurd it is, 
dear!” she said; and kneeling by him she 
laughed and cried together until the boy 
implored her to desist. 

“It ’s so funny that it ’s heart-breaking !” 
she explained inadequately. She looked 
up at him at last. “I ’d better go, Reggie.” 

Reggie caught her full meaning. “No,” 
he said bluntly. “You can’t. You said, 
that day you threw me down, that we could 
be friends still.” 

“Well, you did n’t seem to think we 
could,” Clem remarked. 

“You see,” she added, “my work here is 


CLEM 


done. You ’re all but well. You could be 
down-stairs now, up and down by yourself, 
if we did n’t want to be so careful. Next 
week you ’ll be all over the place. I 
could n’t stay any longer, you see that; so 
why not go now, in a day or two ?” 

'‘Don’t plan about it yet,” Reggie im- 
plored. “I need to get sort of settled. I ’ve 
tho.ught that things were the same, and yet 
all the time I knew they were n’t; knew 
that you were just making a big baby of 
me. But I want to get on my feet again 
before I give up the fight ! What can I do, 
pinned down like a bug in this chair — 
Clem, I wish you had n’t thought I was 
such a damned fool !” 

“I ’m sorry!” Clem said, with an irre- 
pressible smile, and Reggie, looking up and 
catching her eyes, after a hard struggle 
with his dignity, laughed ruefully. 

“I ’m going to leave you now,” Clem 
informed him. “I ’ll tell your mother — ” 

“Don’t tell anybody,” the young man 
said morosely. “I want to be by myself.” 

“Then I ’ll tell Virginia that you want 

1:2523 


CLEM 

her to come up to-night after dinner, shall 
I?’' Clem wheedled. “I won’t come in 
again to-day, unless you send for me, and 
you ’d better not. But I ’ll bring you your 
breakfast to-morrow, and see that you eat 
it. Shall I send you Virginia?” 

“Vee ’s a kid!” growled the aged lover. 

For many weeks Clem had pondered 
over the why of that first talk of hers and 
Virginia Garnet’s during her first week at 
The Pines ; that talk in which the younger 
girl, under a transparent question, had out- 
lined her own first experience of love. A 
random remark of Dell Gresham’s had con- 
firmed Clem’s conclusion; it was evident 
that Virginia’s small love affair had been 
eruptive in its nature and process, and that 
it was therefore no secret. Yet Dell’s 
speaking of it at all was a distinct mark of 
confidence, since it was the other side which 
discussed it, to Lorimer’s intense annoy- 
ance. Clem had long since perceived, of 
her own intelligence, the delicate, filmy, 
motherly planning she had destroyed; the 
great, and in all ways desirable, good she 


CLEM 


had frustrated. She looked at Reggie, a 
faint conception dawning within her of why 
she might be holding all these vari-colored 
threads. Yes, it was an eminently suitable 
thing: Drake Lorimer’s cousin, sweet, ten- 
der, beloved of Reggie’s mother — Reggie’s 
wife! Could it be? Could it be made to 
be? 

She spoke quickly, because she would 
not let herself consider the wisdom of her 
words; her impulse to say them was so 
strong that it must be right to follow it. 

‘‘Virginia, a kid I Reggie, you ’re a bat, 
a mole ! Can’t you see that she ’s a woman 
grown; that she ’s been — hurt?” 

Reggie stared up at her vaguely. “Do 
you mean that she ’s in love — too?” he 
stammered. “Who with? Who ’s the 
man ?” 

Already Clem half repented of her 
words. It was an open secret, and yet, 
Reggie had not known it ; it was too much 
like betrayal. 

“Don’t ask me, and don’t ask her I” she 
said. “But don’t call her a child any longer, 
a child who knows nothing — when there ’s 

[:254i 


CLEM 


such a lot she could teach you! I know 
you hate to have me tell you any woman — 
even your grandmother— is older than you 
are. Shall I ask her to come up?” 

“As you like !” sighed Reggie. She held 
out her hand, and after a scant moment of 
sad gazing, Reggie took it, and then put 
up a long arm, and caught her about the 
neck. 

“You don’t mind!” he murmured, as he 
kissed her. 

“Mind!” Clem laughed gently. “Not 
any more than if you were a kitten, dear.” 

And with that barren joy to feast upon, 
she left him. 

She wore a rather rueful smile when she 
stepped into the hall, and its peculiar qual- 
ity struck Lowe, who met her face to face. 

“You could n’t take a stroll or a drive?” 
he asked her insinuatingly. “What is it? 
You are smiling like a well-behaved child 
whose stick of candy has just been taken 
from her! Who has seized it?” 

“I ’ve given it away,” Clem answered so- 
berly. “No, Jack, I want to rest.” And 
she turned abruptly from him. 

[255 3 


XVIII 


C LEM looked up from her letters the 
next morning, with relief and regret 
mingled in her heart. Here, in this letter, 
lay her way of escape, as well as her path 
of love and duty. And yet, as she read the 
lines which were her summons away, she 
felt an odd sinking of her heart. 

She sat in silence for a few moments, 
dropping lump after lump of sugar into 
her coffee, until she discovered it to be a 
thick and nauseous syrup. She pushed it 
away with a grimace, and spoke, after a 
manner to the entire board, and yet directly 
to Mrs. Wines. 

‘‘My father ’s on the verge of going 
abroad at last. He gets into town day 
after to-morrow, and he wants me back 
there with him, for his last week. I ought 
to go, to-morrow night, I think.’^ 

The spontaneous regret which met her 

1:2563 


CLEM 

words all but embarrassed her. She was 
glad that her call to the city was of so 
demanding a nature. A silly, transparent 
excuse could not have withstood their 
assaults. She was glad when Reggie's 
breakfast-tray was brought in, because she 
always went up-stairs with it and its 
bearer. She carried her letters with her, 
and went into his room with this new ulti- 
matum to follow so close upon the heels of 
yesterday. Reggie greeted her with sulky 
delight. 

“I Ve been waiting for an hour," he 
said. should have sent for you if you 
had n't come. There 's no reason why you 
should keep away from me, if I 'm willing 
to have you round — and I am !" 

‘‘You 've got a fine Italian nature!" she 
said with a rapid little brushing of her 
fingers against his cheek. “Cheer up, old 
man; you 're always snappish till you 're 
fed. I did n't have an idea of not coming 
in this morning, and I 'll stay with you all 
day if you like; for I 've got to go to-mor- 
row, Reggie. Yes, I have, straight! My 


CLEM 


father ’s going to sail next week, and he 
reaches New York day after to-morrow. I 
can’t let my old dad go off for God knows 
how long, without a farewell bat with 
him.” 

‘‘And then you ’ll come back here ?” Reg- 
gie said, with a certainty of inflection which 
did not correspond with his voice, which 
was wistful in the extreme. His morose 
expression deepened as Clem shook her 
head. 

“I can’t, Reggie. Yes, your mother 
asked me to. But I can’t.” 

“You can, but you won't,” he growled. 
“And if I thought you were faking that 
excuse too — ” 

Clem held her father’s letter before his 
eyes, and Reggie impenitently read. 

“Oh, you play straight enough,” he con- 
ceded in half apology. “And, of course, 
with all this, you ’ve got to go. It seems 
cursed coincidental, though. But you 
might come back.” 

“I can’t, Reggie,” she told him. 

All morning long she sat beside him. 


CLEM 


both of them deeply conscious that some 
‘ spell was broken. Her departure had come 
about pertinently and naturally and inev- 
itably, as she had desired. Without doubt, 
her work here was done. Reggie was all 
but well in body, and was not broken in 
heart, however uncontrite he might be; 
nor more than passing sad in mind, thanks 
to the clear absurdity of that misapprehen- 
sion which had rained ridicule and light 
laughter upon young love. And now and 
then, because talk of themselves was probed 
to the ultimate depths, they spoke of Vir- 
ginia, Reggie with a deep and growing- 
curiosity which Clem refused to gratify. 
And it was to Virginia that Clem gave up 
her place that she might begin her prep- 
arations for leaving. 

It was to that same gentle nurse that he 
turned the next morning, after he had 
waved an invalided hand to the Greshams 
and Lorimer and Clem as they went off to- 
gether for a last ride. That was Clem’s 
own manipulation, and she smiled in 
triumph that was all her own at the sight 

Z^59'2 


CLEM 


of those two young faces bending from 
Reggie’s window. What she could do she 
had done. The rest lay in their own hands 
and in the future. 

Through some other subtle machination 
of which she had been supremely uncon- 
scious, she looked ahead down a long, level 
road, later in the morning, and saw no one 
of their party, save only Lorimer, riding 
beside her. They had been talking and 
racing by turns, for how long she did not 
know. At all events, they were completely 
separated from their quondam companions. 

*‘What does it matter?” Lorimer said. 
“Dell and Eaton are still honeymooning. 
They started across the country half an 
hour ago. Come; ahead of us is a spot 
made by God for the rest of the weary. We 
can let the beasts graze, and you can put up 
your hair in supreme peace.” 

A little further on, Lorimer led the way, 
a few paces aside from the road, and dis- 
mounted; and while he attempted to limit 
the radius of grazing-ground, Clem stood, 
fastening up some of the heavy braids of 

1:260] 


CLEM 

her hair which had become loosened in 
their last race. Posed so, she looked, even 
in her tailored habit, more a goddess than a 
mortal woman. She was flawlessly lovely ; 
and Lorimer, looking, was lost. 

Clem, her braids secured beneath her 
riding-hat, glanced casually up into his 
eyes, and, being no unskilled seeress in the 
ways of men, perceived that an unexpected 
and yet a strangely unsurprising crisis was 
impending heavily. Her brain traveled a 
lightning path back over the weeks, and she 
saw precisely the steps which had led them 
both to this precipitate moment. She had 
not foreseen it; she had never thought of it 
as possible; but she realized now that the 
only reason for her lack of taking thought 
for the morrow in this instance was her 
unvoiced conviction that Drake Lorimer 
was triple-guarded against all her powers. 
Otherwise she must have interpreted many 
of his words and deeds just as the present 
moment was interpreting them. 

“I wish you M look at Soubrette’s left 
forefoot,” she remarked coolly, as she 


18 


CLEM 

thrust one of her two remaining hairpins 
into place. '‘I think she picked up a stone 
back yonder.^' 

Lorimer smiled slightly, whereby Clem 
perceived that he had perceived her percep- 
tion of a moment back. She knew then 
that the situation was not to be saved by 
palpable evasions, and yet she tried to 
break the spell once again. 

''Hurry, please,” she said, pushing the 
last pin emphatically into place. "I 've got 
to get back to Reggie.” 

"Reggie is eliminated from this,” Lor- 
imer said. "Oh, you wonderful woman! 
Am I blind that I have not seen ; deaf that 
I have not heard, from his own lips, his 
ignorant tale of what you have done for 
him! If it were possible for me to love 
you more, he gave me the cause, last night, 
in his rambling, hurt talk.” 

The girl frowned a little. "All this is 
past history,” she said. "It ’s been talked 
over too much, anyway. It ’s been played 
out under arc-lights. At least we can keep 

1:262:] 


CLEM 


our tongues still about it. What sort do 
you take me for — 

“For the sort of woman, and that sort 
only, who could say to her boy-lover what 
you said to yours !” Lorimer retorted vehe- 
mently. “He said it all over to me last 
night, poor chap; said it dully; he did not 
know a tenth of what you meant. But let 
me tell you, for your glory, that you ac- 
complished the work you set yourself to 
do; you left him his Ideal unsmirched; you 
left him his belief in his Perfect Woman 
still alive — all that with the wisdom of a 
first experience. He does n’t know, and 
may not, for another score of years, what 
you have done for him in this crucial time 
of his life; and his mother only faintly 
knows. But I know, Clem.” 

She flushed a little, and her eyes met his 
for a second. 

“You get under my guard when you 
talk that way of Reggie,” she murmured. 
“You put it a little different — I hope I have 
done all that; all I wanted to do was to 

1:2633 


CLEM 


leave him for some other girl — the right 
girl — just as sweet and clean and whole- 
some — ” 

She broke off abruptly, and Lorimer 
stooped and mechanically picked up her 
horse’s forefoot. As he raised his head, 
she flung him one of her old, brilliant 
smiles. 

“So, if you feel satisfied about Reggie, 
it ’s all right. I reckon that stone was a 
mistake, my mentioning it. Come, let ’s 
go back. Oh, why need it go any fur- 
ther—” 

Lorimer interrupted her sternly. “What 
do you mean ? That I have not said it all, 
in saying that I love you ? Don’t you know 
that means all things ; that I have no wish 
on earth but to make you my wife — ” 

Clem sat down against the grassy 
mound against which she had been half 
kneeling. She dropped her chin into her 
hand, and she motioned him freely to the 
place beside her. 

“Tliere ’s no helping it now,” she said. 
“We might as well have it out, here and 

1:264] 


CLEM 

forever. Sit down and let ’s be as com- 
fortable as we can, because — ’’ 

But Lorimer stood before her, speaking 
with rigid self-control. 

“Don’t say what you were going to say 
now — yet. Because you are going to dis- 
miss it all with a word. This thing means 
too much — it deserves more than a dis- 
missing word. It began the first night I 
looked into your face. I know that now. 
It grew to gigantic height that night you 
went away only to come back, three hours 
later.” 

Clem flushed again. “Ever since I Ve 
been back, I ’ve wanted to say something to 
you about that talk of ours, and I could 
never find the words. I could n’t take it 
back, because I believe in my soul that 
everything I said is true. But I ’ve been 
mighty sorry lots of times since that I said 
all I did. It was n’t generous; there was 
no sense in it, no use in it, no good done by 
it. I wish I had n’t.” 

“I ’ve never wanted you to take back one 
word,” Lorimer replied steadily. “Nor 


CLEM 

have I wished that you had left anything 
unsaid. You made the petty things of 
life shrink into nothingness; you made 
only the big things in it seem worth while. 
You have shamed us all — there have been 
many times when I could have kissed your 
garment’s hem for the outgiving virtue 
of it. I think we have all thanked the 
gods for this accidental chance which 
brought you back here, to give us our 
chance — ” 

Clem put out her hand in mute protest. 

‘‘That ’s all buried and done for,” she 
said. “No good ever came of raking up 
old scores.” 

“As for this other thing,” she added, 
after a pause. “I ’m sorry, but it ’s not 
possible. Oh, it ’s not possible! You ’ve 
got sense enough to see straight; why do 
you try to ride through a mountain ; to beat 
your head against a wall that won’t be bat- 
tered down?” 

“I must know all this beyond all doubt,” 
Lorimer insisted. His face had paled 
slightly, but his eyes were gleaming. “ Y ou 
[266;] 


CLEM 


must tell me why — Ah, let us talk face to 
face in this. You are too big to turn away, 
and refuse to face any truth; and this is 
Truth, Clem.” 

Clem struck with her whip the long, dry 
grass at her feet. 

“Both of us are going to get hurt if we 
don’t call it all off— now!— and shake 
hands. Come 1” 

She held out her hand with a glance 
which was brightly beseeching. Lorimer 
shook his head. 

“I promise you that I will shake hands 
with you at last, if it must be only that,” he 
said. “But not now—” 

“It must all come to the same thing,” she 
interrupted. “This way we both accept it. 
The other way — we handle live coals and 
burn our hands, and perhaps can’t shake 
hands because of the sting and smart — ” 

“Let us pick up the burning coals,” Lor- 
imer pressed. “You can’t expect me to 
take my dismissal with merely a friendly 
hand-clasp, after this.” 

“After all, it ’s soon said,” Clem re- 

1:2673 


CLEM 


marked. “Sit down, do ; let ’s be comfort- 
able. You ’re keen enough to know that 
the thing which drew you toward me for 
awhile back yonder was n’t congeniality, 
but our awful unlikeness. I ’ve been 
brought up with men, you know — that ’s 
enough to account for my unlikeness to 
most of the women you ’ve known ; and by 
the same token it accounts for your being 
a new sort to me. I ’ve lived with men^ 
you know — ” 

Lorimer’s lips parted, even as they whit- 
ened slightly. But Clem forestalled him. 

“Here ’s my idea !” she said quickly. She 
picked up his hand and laid it, palm down, 
along her own. She followed its fine out- 
line with her finger while she talked : 

“Here ’s my idea! It fascinated me, 
this hand of yours, the first night I met 
you, when I read your hand and Jack’s to- 
gether. The difference there is in them! 
Jack ’s a gentleman — I ’ve known a lot of 
men who were gentlemen of sorts— but I 
never in my life met any man but you who 
would n’t be capable of forgetting, some- 


CLEM 

times, that he was a gentleman, in remem- 
bering that he was a man! You ’d never 
forget it ; you could n’t I If you were ever 
face to face with Life, with only these hands 
of yours between you and it and Death, 
you ’d die like a gentleman, but you ’d die. 

’ve been reading a lot of your books 
this last month. I ’ve been reading up on 
your women, your men; and I ’ve learned 
more about you, there, than you ’d believe 
was there. I know now, the sort of men 
and women you stand for ; the sort of life 
and living you admire. It ’s hard to say 
any of this without saying things that I 
don’t mean. But the fact is, that both you 
and I are limited, in some ways, forever; 
and what each of us has lacked, we ’ve liked 
in the other. But for us to try to get past 
those limitations — it would be hell; you 
take my word for that. You know it, with- 
out words!” 

She glanced at him quickly, but he was 
looking straight ahead of him, with a face 
so set that a weary shadow crept into her 
eyes. 


1:2693 


CLEM 


“Well, that ’s the whole of it,” she added, 
again, in the pause which Lorimer did not 
break, although she waited for him hope- 
fully. “All of us have slumbering traits 
that reach out after, the same ones, devel- 
oped in others — ” She broke off abruptly. 
“It ’s hard to talk sometimes, is n’t it? 
Words are nothing but thick veils that you 
draw down over what you are really think- 
ing. I ’m afraid I ’ve made a bad botch of 
it all-” 

“You Ve made yourself painstakingly 
clear,” Lorimer said, between dry lips. 
“Yes, I insisted; you had to make your 
stand. No, I don’t blame you for anything 
you have said, now or at any time. Know 
that always. You are not to blame because 
my blood is not red enough to call to you, 
and my hands are not brawny enough to 
conquer you. You are quite right ; I should 
not grapple frantically with life and death; 
I should realize too keenly the weary futil- 
ity of fighting against impossible odds.” 

He sprang to his feet and held out his 
hand to her. 


1:2703 


CLEM 


‘Well, after all this carrying of coals, 
let us shake hands; the smart of the burn 
does not preclude the keeping of that 
promise.” 

She put out her hand with averted eyes, 
and he held it for a moment without speak- 
ing. 

“I am going to say good-by, here, now,” 
he said at last. “You are leaving us to- 
night ! I shall take you back to the house, 
and if you don’t see me again, you will 
know by new proof that I am not a man 
who thinks it worth while to fight shadows 
or stone walls.” 

He paused, but he did not release her 
hand, and he stood looking down upon her 
fair head and her averted face. 

“In those first days,” he said abruptly, 
“some one we both know pictured you in 
phrases that I would give most things to 
call mine, phrases that I could not have 
made then of you, and yet they have stood 
always for you in my heart. And if it is 
worth while to have made them, it is worth 
much to be the subject of them : ‘She looked 

1:2713 


CLEM 


the primitive Woman. . . . She might 
have been the primeval Woman, walking 
untrodden sands, pressing the springing 
earth when the world was young. . . . She 
was so nobly unashamed and so purely 
human. . . . The very atoms of her might 
have been scooped up from virgin earth, 
from sea-born clay just washed to shore. 
. . . And a Rodin hand might have mod- 
eled her!’ ” 

He ^aid it reverently, slowly. 

He bent low at last to look into her face. 
“Clem !” he said. 

She looked up at him blindly. He could 
not read her face — the strange light on it. 

“Did Jack say that? Then? — That far 
back?” she stammered. 

Lorimer drew back a little. “Jack? 
Yes, it was Jack; though I did n’t say so.” 

He was surveying her with unflinching 
keenness. Suddenly he caught up both her 
hands and drew her to her feet, and for a 
moment they looked on each other, in be- 
wildered silence. Then Lorimer released 
her, and stepped back with a little smile 

[2723 


CLEM 

about his lips that was like a groan re- 
pressed. 

“I think,” he said slowly, “that we have 
both been reasoning from false premises, 
in this talk of ours. And, on each side, 
most innocently.” 

For another moment he stared down into 
her face, and then he lifted her hands, and 
held them close against his breast, looking 
at her with all of the longing and none of 
the joy of love. 

“You will be very happy,” he said in a 
strained, keen voice. “Very happy. You 
are made for joy, and you will live it; and 
if I may be able ever to further it in any 
way — ” 

He raised his eyes, and looked straight 
above Clem’s head, into Lowe’s face ; Lowe, 
who, in the course of a solitary stroll, had 
chanced upon this woodland scene. For a 
moment the eyes of the two men met in a 
look which was unmistakable to each of 
them, and Lorimer, if he had never felt it 
before, knew then the primal call to battle. 

And then heredity and environment and, 

[273 3 


CLEM 


perhaps, the sense of the weary futility of 
struggle fell upon that primal call and 
crushed it. He laid her hands gently down, 
and spoke over her shoulder to Lowe, in a 
voice that almost achieved his customary 
level tone. 

‘‘You Ye walking, Jack? Then take my 
horse, will you, when Miss Merrit is ready 
to go back, and see her safely home?” 

Clem, turning quickly, protesting fiercely, 
was hushed into dumbness by the vivid fire 
in Lowe's eyes as he came toward her. 
They stood in silence until all sound of 
footsteps had died away, and then, at a 
quick move of Lowe toward her, Clem 
shrank back against a tree trunk, holding 
him off with a raised hand. She broke into 
hurried words. 

“I Ve just heard of — the hully thing you 
did for me. Jack, down at the beach, weeks 
ago — that stunt of yours in words. Jack!” 
She was laughing a little, trying, so, to 
hide the great emotion which surged 
through her. “I have n’t the nerve to 
quote it — all that virgin earth and sea-born 

1:274:] 


CLEM 

clay business — but you could n^t have added 
another word to what you said 

Lowe's fixed gaze and impassive face 
were relieved only by the flicker of his light 
lashes, and, at last, by a shadowy smile. 

“I could have added nothing — there !" he 
conceded. “But all was not said in that 
long past moment, Clem." 

He was standing before her, his hands 
clasped behind him, yet as close to her as if 
he held her in his arms. 

“All these two years of meetings and of 
absences have been bringing us both to this 
relentless moment. You know that. We 
belong to each other, and this is our hour. 
Nothing, nobody, counts in it, save only 
you and me. You know that." 

Her face had paled, but in her eyes no 
doubts lingered. He saw there the answer 
to the cry, and he did not need to hear her 
solemnly uttered words. 

“Yes, I know that," she said. 

THE END 


1^751 


vvi • r'Tfif' 
^ * 


rL^iUPPi? ’• . - • ' .. I • V > 



rrv'''^: 4 , ■ . iBwasi ' ' 

■TJS'v • ' 

HD' * > , • ' .. * , » 

W ^ r W I ,» * ‘ » 


VV\ 


i'^ '■ WPt'v; r ,\:. 
^\‘y * ■ .'» 


- i ’ 



k 1 


?» . 


< 


• ' . .' 1 J , ■ ; 


d •< 
> ) 


•. » 


«. I 


> 


' 


« • I 


I 


* •. 




!• 


^ ■ i' I 

^ ■ ,“ « # fc ¥ \ 


P iv.i . ^ 5 I, ,' ,1 . ; ‘ . \\ ... 

' 4 ^ •■ V';^; ,. 

r i'-'-'tlMv ' ' ' * ' ‘ - • - 







♦ 

i'.< 

f 


.r. 


n • 




'/'l 



'x-'V' '■ . • 

]■ *• j . , V • ;- ^ 



yfr 



* yi 


1 . 


1^' 


( 

-*. I* 


4 .^' ' '■ 

•# 








4:'^ 


u 








■ '*1' ‘ 


f ^ :> 


* . 


V'!'' 




..V V 


r, 


» > .r 





if'*"#;,' j'O'’ 

» • n 'vi • 


;; ''^w, 




' j t •• 


.:i'' 



\'V'' '*,. .'v'W./iii /'. i •' -,j 

<m}k \: "y) 




k , ■ • I ’ * '. I ' ■ ' • • * , ■ . ’ . • I ' 

'lV ’ ■ * 

i. ‘r. J_ » ' \ 'J ^ 

'/ k kfMDft > * 

^ A j I M K. ^ . A 


» 


"’■'•'"“‘"•Vi ,j. :.ii,#i5- ,- :■• ‘■7/;.i'. 

' I ‘ ’H'’’ • 

’*’ ’ ''dP* *Tvfi' ' 4 ’V’,Vi ^ 


r« 


/ > 



.^v 

L t-' 


I I 



• 



• ^ 

• ,/'r' 

» 

$ 

V /■ '■ ’ 

7 

t 

1 

4 


« 

f .• 

S’’'*- 

V 

1 

fl . 

> 

Ai 

A. 


i 

« t 




.C’l 



Ca V 




't‘u> ■■' '>■ ' '■'• '■ ■ ■' v",jS'' < 

m-r .;■ 


,;f. 


« I i 


\i\iY 


it 


i' ■*. 


I « 


■ » 


A. 


^ 'Til *.’*) • ’ *• i • • \r 


v:-.r 


h' ' 




k ; 


-v.-f 


-♦iVv.' u 4 i. > 


. '. * ‘••• 

, • w ! i 

’ ‘j J , 






I 


\ 


I 

1 


I 




' ' . ^ fif* 


. ’ TTV.^ 



f* , 




t 


• y 






